Mobile phone penetration increased by 6% from 88% to 94% here in the last quarter of 2004. That is according to the latest quarterly report from the Commission for Communications Regulation, which highlights a number of key trends in the electronic communications sector.
The ComReg report says that there are now an estimated 3.78 million mobile phone subscribers in Ireland. It says that this growth - which is mainly in the pre-paid segment - may have been influenced by seasonal factors as the quarter under review covered the Christmas period.
There were over one billion text messages sent during the fourth quarter of 2004, up almost 10% on the previous quarter. This equates to an average of 89 text messages per subscriber per month.
ComReg says that Meteor has increased its market share, based on subscriber numbers to 9%, with Vodafone and O2 having 51% and 40% respectively.
In relation to broadband, ComReg said that DDL takeup also increased over the last quarter of 2004 by over 37% to 114,000, up from 83,000. By the end of last year, there was a total of 131,550 broadband subscribers.
Total revenues for fixed, mobile and broadcasting markets now stands at an estimated €4 billion a year. This is up almost 6% mainly due to growth in mobile revenues.
