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German Telecom Industry Revenue Down

Posted on: Friday, 4 April 2008, 09:00 CDT

Germany's telecommunications regulator Bundesnetsagentur has said that the industry's revenues fell by 4% to E63.8 billion in 2007 due to decline in prices, Reuters has reported.

The regulator has said that the fall in overall revenues for the second consecutive year was mainly due to price wars for voice telephony and DSL internet connections among service providers.

However, competitors of Deutsche Telekom, including Vodafone, O2, KPN's discount brands and resellers such as Freenet, achieved 52% market share for the first time in 2007.

Subscriptions for 3G UMTS mobile services such as video or email access through phones or laptops, more than tripled between 2005 and 2007 to 8.7 million, or 9% of all German mobile subscribers. 3G licenses were first granted in Germany about eight years back.

Matthias Kurth, president of Bundesnetzagentur, said: "Like every new technology, UMTS and its now successful development needed time to reach a mass market. It's now caught on and the mobile internet is now on a fast track."

The fixed-line broadband internet connections also rose by five million in 2007, taking the total number of broadband connections in the country to 20 million. Broadband connections can now reach 80% of households with speeds between three and seven megabits per second.

More than half the new broadband subscribers were bagged by Deutsche Telekom's competitors, such as United Internet and Versatel.

The mobile voice connections increased by 14% to 97.3 million while fixed-line connections declined by 1% to 53.7 million.

Source: Datamonitor

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