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Poland Telecommunications Report Q4 2011
Business Monitor International, Sep 2011, Pages: 125
The Q411 update to the Poland Telecommunications Market report contains the latest available data from Poland's major fixed-line, broadband, mobile and pay-TV operators and service providers. In most cases this data covers the period up to the end of June 2011. However, a minority of operators are yet to report results, in which case BMI estimated figures based on BMi’s analysis of prevailing market trends. This data forms the basis of BMI’s forecasts for the fixed-line, broadband and mobile subscriber markets, as well as for mobile ARPUs which were introduced in the previous quarterly report.
The fixed-line market continued to decline in popularity (and will continue to do so as consumers replace their narrowband accesses with fixed and mobile broadband connections),. However, one bright spot for the fixed-line market is the continued success of converged services. UPC, Poland's largest cable operator, reported 17.4% growth in fixed-line subscriptions Q210 to Q211. This growth was built on multi-play packages, and with Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA), Netia and Cyfrowy Polsat becoming increasingly multi-play oriented there are more positive signs in an otherwise decreasing market.
Mobile and broadband services continue to perform strongly in Poland. TPSA, which is managed by France Telecom and provides many of its most popular services under the Orange brand, reflects these trends in its financial and operational results. Its retail fixed-line business continues to decline and its wholesale line rental (WLR) business continues to grow, but is beginning to show signs of fatigue as consumers increasingly move to dedicated broadband connections. As it controls the majority of the country's last mile plant, TPSA also dominates the fixed broadband market with its ADSL-based services prevailing.
The mobile market was boosted considerably in H111 as all operators managed positive subscriber growth in Q211. Orange continued to add hundreds of new customers through its affiliations with MVNO operators, Polkomtel maintained growth with 81,000 net additions, following large losses in the first three quarters of 2010. Meanwhile, newcomers such as P4 and Aero2 began to compete aggressively with the established players. P4 reported particularly strong growth figures, with net additions of 837,000 in H111. However, these are unverified figures and as such we remain sceptical about the sustainability of growth in future.
The reduction of mobile termination rates (MTRs) helped make inter-network calls cheaper and this may have attracted more subscribers into the market, but this has dampened top-line revenues, which filters down into ARPUs and shows that earnings from users are far from rosy. We are concerned that the focus on the lower end of the market means operators are merely stockpiling more short-term customers that do not remain active for long and double up on the subscriber figures being reported, skewing BMI’s view of the market. However, it is clear there are few new organic growth opportunities available and we forecast flat growth in 2012 followed by a slow rate of decline through to the end of 2015.
Business Monitor International's Poland Telecommunications Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, telecommunication associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Poland's telecommunications industry.
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