During the first three months of 2009, Maltese subscribers spent a total of 70 million minutes on their mobile phones, an increase of 18% over the same period last year, the Malta Communications Authority observed this afternoon.

"This clearly reflects the increasing level of competition in the local mobile telephony market, resulting in a wider choice for the consumer," Malta Communications Authority (MCA) Chairman Philip Micallef said.

Reacting to a report published by the National Staistics Office, Ing Micallef said significant developments continued to be registered on every front of the mobile telephony market, with the resultant positive impact on usage.

When referring to the mobile telephony sector, Ing. Micallef pointed out that February 2009 marked the entry of Melita Mobile - the third full service mobile telephony operator in Malta using the latest generation of 3G mobile technology.

In terms of statistics for this particular quarter, the total number of subscribers went up to 388,356, a 4% increase on the figures of the first quarter of 2008.

Service providers' efforts to encourage subscribers to switch from pre-paid to post-paid plans appeared to be leaving their mark with the percentage of prepaid users dropping to 82% as opposed to 86% at the end of 2008.

The MCA Chairman stressed the positive impact of number portability, which was further highlighted with a total of approximately 22,000 numbers ported in this quarter alone.

"This level of switching of subscribers between operators is one of the important indicators of the level of competition in the market," he added. "In fact, consumers continue to make more calls every year - during this first quarter of 2009, 70 million mobile originating minutes were registered, resulting in an increase of 18% over the first quarter of 2008".

This he said, was the result of more advantageous calling offers made by undertakings, in particular offers including free minute bundles. I

Ing. Micallef also noted that the effect of competition was being viewed positively in terms of an increase in usage although he noted that the latest statistics indicated that Malta still lagged in terms of the cost of mobile telephony when compared to other European countries.