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Belgium Telecommunications Report Q1 2012
Business Monitor International, Nov 2011, Pages: 80
Business Monitor International's Belgium Telecommunications Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, telecommunication associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Belgium's telecommunications industry.
This quarter, BMI has extended its forecasts for Belgium's mobile, broadband and fixed telephony markets to 2016, taking into account the latest developments in each of these markets as well as incorporating some new and restated historical data from the principal operators and the national regulatory authority. In general, however, BMI's core views and long-term scenarios for the country have not changed significantly.
The mobile market reported muted growth in H111 as subscriber addition rates were below par. Recognising that this mature market is all but tapped out regarding potential organic growth, operators are now focusing on improving their subscriber mixes to ensure improvements to revenues and profits. This means moving customers from low-value prepaid services to premium postpaid services, using value mobile broadband packages and heavily-subsidised gadgets (such as smartphones and mobile computers) as an incentive to upgrade and remain on-net. However, regulator-mandated cuts to mobile termination and roaming rates are offsetting many of the gains from improving the subscriber mix.
With these issues in mind, BMI is forecasting only nominal increases in mobile subscriber numbers over the 2012-2016 period. BMI expects there to be 15.597mn subscribers by 2016, representing a penetration rate of 143%, due to a brief surge in interest in mobile services from 2012/2013 stemming from the arrival of new entrant Telenet/Tecteo.
Meanwhile, new historical data from the regulator provides a new baseline for the broadband forecasts. Further, greater detail on the make-up of the broadband market has enabled us to provide a more accurate outlook regarding developments in that field. The regulator claims that there were 3.659mn fixed and mobile broadband connections at the end of 2010, up by 7.7% y-o-y and representing a penetration rate of 7.1%.
BMI projects a subscriber base of nearly 4.109mn by the end of 2011 (boosted by rapid growth reported by M2M market leader Mobistar), a figure that will rise to 5.194mn by the end of 2016, raising broadband penetration to 47.7%.
There were 4.640mn fixed-voice connections on the market at the end of 2010. The number of connections grew slightly in 2010 as the main alternative operators had a degree of success selling voice telephony services as part of a package or bundle. Alternative operators accounted for 27% of the fixed voice market at the end of 2010, versus 23% in 2009 and 21% in 2008.
However, the indications are that the rate of decline at incumbent Belgacom is outpacing growth by alternative operators in 2011 and that therefore, the number of fixed lines will decline to around 4.57mn by the end of the year. This would represent a penetration rate of 42.5%. The downward trend will continue over the following five years and result in there being less than 4.1mn fixed lines in service by the end of 2016.
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