The popularity of SMS messages continued to grow last year, with a leap of 10 per cent over the previous year to reach 634 million texts, according to figures published by the Malta Communications Authority.
This is equivalent to nearly 1,200 text messages per consumer per year.
Mobile phone calls were up by some 8.3 per cent, to reach 581 million minutes, from 492.6 minutes in 2011.
With 539,452 mobile phone subscriptions, that means nearly 18 hours of calls per subscriber over the year.
The data forms part of the authority’s annual survey which shows that, predictably, the number of fixed line subscriptions dropped again, this year by 1.1 per cent to reach 229,736.
The decline was mirrored by a drop in the amount of time people spent talking on fixed lines, with volumes down by 2.5 per cent from 672.7 million in 2011 to 655.9 million in 2012.
18
the average number of hours subscribers spend on calls on their mobile phone each year
The takeover of mobile phones represents a penetration rate of 129.2 per cent, up from 125.4 per cent the previous year.
Moreover, almost 80 per cent of all subscriptions were on a pre-paid contract at the end of 2012, even though this is down a few percentage points from the previous year.
The number of mobile subscriptions on a bundled offer increased from 48,995 (9.4 per cent of total mobile subscriptions) at the end of 2011 to 54,150 (10 per cent of total mobile subscriptions) at the end of 2012.
Almost 61,000 subscribers changed their mobile service provider but kept their original mobile numbers.
Go’s Ten21 service, which provides cheaper international calls through an internet connection, accounted for the lion’s share of outbound voice traffic volumes, with 63.5 per cent of the total number of international voice call minutes recorded in 2012.
Nevertheless, this market share was down by nearly 0.7 of a percentage point over that recorded in the previous year.
Vodafone, on the other hand, consolidated its market share in the mobile sector as it accounted for 50.4 per cent of the local mobile subscriber base as at the end of 2012, up from 49.8 per cent as at the end of the previous year.
Meanwhile, Go Mobile lost market share, down from 37.4 per cent to 34.8 per cent while Redtouchfone, which uses the Vodafone technology, showed a market share of two per cent at the end of 2012.
Valletta FC Mobile and the Nationalist Party’s Ping accounted for 0.1 per cent of the market.
In 2012, the postal sector contributed just about €15.9 million to the economy, with 33.2 million domestic letters and parcels being posted. Inbound cross-border volumes totalled 5.5 million while 2.9 mail products were posted from Malta to overseas.
With regard to internet broadband, there were 137,009 broadband subscriptions at the end of last year, up from 129,320 the previous year.
A total of 31,539 customers were subscribed to a service at a speed of less than 10 Megabits per second.
Go had a market share of 49.4 per cent of fixed broadband subscribers at the end of 2012, down from 50.8 per cent a year earlier. Nevertheless, in absolute terms, Go’s subscriptions increased from a total of 65,720 at the end of 2011 to 67,732 at the end of 2012.
Melita’s subscriber base totalled 64,768 by the end of 2012, corresponding to a market share of 47.3 per cent, up by 1.6 percentage points since the previous year.
Vodafone’s market share went down from 2.9 per cent at the end of 2011 to 2.7 per cent.
In numbers
Outgoing fixed calls
192.3 million
Outgoing fixed minutes
655.9 million
Mobile subscriptions
539,452
Outgoing mobile calls
367.4 million
Outgoing mobile voice minutes
581.2 million
SMSs
633.8 million
Domestic mail volumes
33.2 million
Inbound cross-border mail
5.5 million
Outbound cross-border mail
2.9 million