Broadband Market Share in Austria beating the 70% Mark for the First Time

Press release dated 13 March 2009

“With 2.52 million subscribers in the third quarter of 2008, the Austrian broadband market share at household level for the first time hit the 70% level”, Dr. Georg Serentschy, managing director of RTR-GmbH for the telecommunications division, announced the figures of the latest RTR Telekom Monitor. While, with an increase from 1,707,000 during the second quarter of 2008 to 1,711,000 in the third quarter, the growth in terrestrial broadband connections was rather small, mobile broadband connections increased much the more, i.e. from 730,700 in the second quarter of 2008 to 812,700 in the third quarter of 2008.  We take it that broadband connections implemented via mobile communications technology will also in the future continue to see a sharp increase. “In the case of terrestrial connections, growth might be back as a result of sales promotion activities of a number of providers”, is Serentschy’s estimate for the future.

Austrians were less on the cell phone during the third quarter of 2008

“For the first time in many years, the upward trend of minutes spoken over mobile phones has been discontinued”, Serentschy discloses further figures. “Although sales proceeds in mobile communication remained unchanged, the number of minutes spoken decreased from the second to the third quarter of 2008. They dropped by 3.1%, from 4,904 million minutes to 4,753 million minutes.  Apart from a seasonal decrease (“summer slump”), this can be explained by two different approaches for an explanation. One is that we may have arrived at a final point of the trend of minutes spoken – people already are on the phone often enough or long enough, so that additional minutes free of charge are no further incentive to make more or longer phone calls. However, with a number of sales promotions, terrestrial connections may now increase in acceptance. Still, it would be too early to speak of a trend reversal”, Serentschy interprets the market development.

The latest RTR Telekom Monitor with the data fort he third quarter of 2008 can be accessed on the RTR-GmbH website under the following link (in German):