2018 Portugal - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Portuguese telcos looking to complete national fibre networks by 2020

Portugal has a medium-sized telecom market with a strong mobile sector and a growing broadband customer base focussed on the delivery of fibre-based services. Investments in network upgrades are continuing in an effort to attract customers to high-end services, while operators have also increasingly looked at network sharing to reduce expenditure while widening their footprint reach. In general terms the country during the last two years has shown signs of improving economic growth, which is helping to stimulate customer spend on telecom services.

The mobile market is dominated by the incumbent Portugal Telecom, owned by Altice Group and operating as Meo, followed by Vodafone and NOS. The market share held by Meo has fallen steadily in recent years. The MVNO market remains undeveloped, partly because network operators have their own low-cost brands. Collectively, MVNOs have about 2.1% share of the market.

Population coverage by 3G infrastructure is universal and so most investment has been directed to LTE and to incremental upgrades to network infrastructure. Altice Labs in February 2017 began working with Ericsson to develop 5G services and applications.

Portugal’s broadband penetration has grown steadily in recent years, largely the result of joint efforts between the regulator and the key market operators which have invested in significant infrastructure upgrades. These operators are also focussed on fibre-based services, resulting in a migration of subscribers from DSL to fibre. Portugal Telecom is aiming to cover 5.3 million premises with FttP by 2020, providing national coverage. The cable sector has also shifted towards fibre, with the principal cableco NOS investing in fibre rather than cable upgrades. In addition, Vodafone Portugal provides fibre to about two-thirds of premises. Vodafone and NOS recently signed an agreement to share fibre infrastructure, which pushed Vodafone’s addressable market to some four million premises. As a result of these efforts DSL is no longer the dominant platform for broadband access.

This report introduces the major elements of the Portuguese telecom market, presenting statistics on the fixed telephony sector as well as analyses on the major market players. Additional information is provided on the key regulatory issues, noting the status of interconnection, local loop unbundling, number portability and carrier preselection. This report also assesses the mobile market, providing statistics on network operators, a snapshot of the consumer market, and an assessment of mobile data services. In addition the report profiles the fixed and fixed-wireless broadband markets, providing key statistics on the retail and wholesale sectors as well as subscriber forecasts to 2023.

Key developments:

• New cable to link Portugal with Brazil;
• Portugal Telecom planning to replace copper network with FttP by 2020;
• NOS eschews route to DOCSIS3.1 in favour of fibre;
• Portugal Telecom revenue continues to recover into 2017 under Altice Group ownership;
• Regulator sets reduced MTRs from July 2018;
• Vodafone achieves 1Gb/s downlink speeds in LTE-A trials;
• Continuing decline in SMS traffic in wake of messaging alternatives;
• NOS trialling NB-IoT; m-payment solution developments;
• Meo ramps up fibre roll out, aiming for 5.3 million connected premises by 2020;
• Vodafone signs fibre-network sharing agreement with NOS;
• Fibre subscriber base grows 28% in the year to September 2017;
• Report update includes the regulator’s market data to Q4 2017, telcos’ operating and financial data to Q4 2017, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Portugal Telecom (Meo), NOS (Optimus, Zon Multimédia), Vodafone Portugal, CTT, Lycamobile, Sonaecom, Cabovisão