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Australia Telecommunications Report Q4 2011
Business Monitor International, Sep 2011, Pages: 103
BMI's latest update on the Australian telecoms market provides the latest data from all three operators: Telstra, Singapore Telecommunications' Optus and Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) for the period ended June 2011. The operators reported a combined subscriber base of 28.520mn, following net additions of 83,000. According to BMI records, this is the lowest performing quarter since March 2006 when there were just 55,000 net additions. The resulting fall in subscriber growth was largely the result of the removal of inactive subscribers.
Optus reported an 85,000 decline in the number of prepaid subscribers in the quarter ended June 2011 and said this was due to fewer people using its international calling cards. VHA represented the largest loss of 245,000 in the quarter, which it simply put down to an ‘alignment of customer reporting definitions.' BMI notes, however, that Australia's mobile market does not have a reporting standard for customer numbers and that the sector remains highly inflated as a result of the proliferation of cheap prepaid cards and new mobile broadband devices. BMI notes that Optus discounts its customers after a six-month period followed by VHA on three months and Telstra on 30 days.
However, the three operators told a local newspaper that there remained 'nothing deceptive about reporting active revenue-making services as a customer' although the regulatory body Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) wants the industry to change and is aiming to tidy up the figures with new disclosure obligations on actual customer numbers. BMI believes that if stringent rules of customer reporting definitions were to be put in place this could lead to the drastic reduction in penetration rates to as low as 80%.
BMI continues to note the falling number of fixed-lines in service, which is perhaps unsurprising considering how affordable mobile services have become. According to the figures of the two operators Telstra and Optus, there were a combined number of 9.385mn fixed-lines in service, of which Telstra had an 89.2% share of the market.
Telstra announced a y-o-y decline of 3.3%, which the operator reported to be its lowest decline in the last four years and noted that this was due to the effect of its bundled offers. These offers included Telstra T-Box and T-Hub products and the improvement value of its fixed broadband plans. As for Optus, the operator had 1.015mn fixed lines in service representing a y-o-y increase of 1.1% resulting from a 3.6% y-o-y increase in the number of ULL customers, which offset a 1.4% y-o-y fall in the number of HFC customers.
Considering the competitiveness of the mobile sector, which has continued to negatively affect fixed-line growth, this resulted in a decline in the Industry Rewards score for Australia in this quarter's Asia Pacific Business Environment Ratings. Australia therefore fell to third place from second place, putting it behind Japan and Singapore in first and second place, respectively.
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