Australia - Mobile Infrastructure, Broadband, Operators - Statistics and Analyses

Last updated: 28 Apr 2020 Update History

Report Status: Archived

Report Pages: 149

Analyst: Sebastien De Rosbo

Contact BuddeComm

Purchase this Report

Summary
Table Of Contents

Synopsis

The Australian mobile market is dominated by the three major mobile network operators Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone (VHA). These have been able to offer LTE services on a wholesale basis thus encouraging growth in the LTE sector.

There is also a significant number of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) in Australia: These companies purchase wholesale mobile services from the MNOs, provide services under their own brand and typically provide their own billing and customer care. Key MVNOs in Australia include Amaysim, Kogan Mobile, Aldi Mobile, Ovo Mobile, Boost Mobile, Lebara Mobile and Virgin Mobile.

Australia’s mobile network operators continued to work towards the launch of 5G, laying foundations for the next-generation network and continued to develop and enhance their existing 4G networks on the upgrade pathway to 5G.

By 2019 all three MNOs now provide comprehensive population coverage with their LTE networks and were well on the way to launching 5G services.

In common with most mature markets, in Australia there are significantly more subscribers to mobile services than there are people. Growth is being driven by population increases as well as a rise in the number of people using two or mobile subscriptions – commonly one is for personal use and another for business use.

Very slow growth is predicted over the next five years to 2024 with penetration rates predicted to rise only slightly above projected population increase.

Revenue for mobile operators in recent years has been characterised by the continuing take up of services based on LTE technology, and to the rising proportion of mobile data to overall revenue.

All three Australian mobile operators are now investing billions of dollars in their networks annually, with a view to securing new customers and retaining existing ones. Increasingly, consumers are looking to mobile communications for their broadband needs.

BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries.

On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth.

Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report.

The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions.

Key developments:

Australia's mobile network operators continue to work towards the launch of 5G.
Australia is predicted to be one of the top four of markets that will drive the growth of 5G in Asia.
5G connections are predicted to account for around 50-60% of total connections by 2025.
Very slow mobile subscriber growth is predicted over the next five years to 2024.
4.5G and 5G are the new frontiers linked to wearable device communications and other IoT and M2M activities.
Assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector.

Companies mentioned in this report:

VHA, Vodafone, 3, Optus, Huawei, Telstra, Vividwireless, Ericsson, EnergyAustralia, SingTel, Unwired, Kogan Mobile, Apple, Nokia, Google, Ericsson, Samsung, Vodafone, 3, VHA, Optus, Telstra.

Market analysis
COVID-19 and its impact on the telecom sector

Economic considerations and responses
Mobile devices
Subscribers
Infrastructure

Mobile statistics

Total mobile subscribers and market forecast
Mobile operators – subscriber market shares and growth
Prepaid and postpaid subscribers by operator
Mobile services revenues, forecast and market analysis
Operator revenue statistics overview

Revenue by major operator
Revenue market share and trends by operator

Average revenue per user (ARPU)
Mobile broadband statistics and forecast

Mobile infrastructure

Introduction
2015 - 2016 developments
2017 developments
2018 developments
2019 developments

4G (LTE)
3G services
2G services
VoLTE
Small cell technology
NB-IoT

Mobile spectrum overview

Spectrum ownership and licences
Fifteen-year spectrum licence pathway
Additional spectrum – 5G

Mobile spectrum auctions

800MHz and 1.8GHz auctions
700MHz and 2.5GHz auction results Auctions
4G Auctions – 2016
Residual spectrum auction – 2017
700 MHz spectrum auction 2017
5G Spectrum Auction

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)

Introduction
Telstra

Overview
Mobile network
LTE-Advanced (LTE-A)
Wholesale LTE
Gigabit LTE
Financial statistics and operating statistics

Optus

Overview
Mobile network
5G developments
Financial and operating statistics

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA)

Company overview
NBN rollout
3G and HSPA networks
4G LTE and 5G network
Financial and operating statistics
MVNO deals
Network upgrades
IoT strategy

Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)

Market definition
Market overview
Market statistics
Historical overview
Amaysim
Kogan Mobile
Aldi Mobile
Ovo Mobile
Lebara Mobile
Boost Mobile
TravelSIM
Virgin Mobile
Woolworths Mobile
MeU Mobile

Mobile handsets

Smartphone usage statistics
Handset supplier market shares
Wearables and smartwatches

Appendix – Historic data
Glossary of abbreviations
Related reports

List of Tables

Table 1 – Mobile subscribers, penetration and annual change (with forecast) – 2009 – 2024
Table 2 – Historic - Mobile subscribers, penetration and annual change (with forecast) – 2000 – 2010
Table 3 – Mobile subscribers (millions) by MNO (with forecast) – 2009 – 2020
Table 4 – Annual change of mobile subscribers by MNO – 2010 – 2020
Table 5 – Market share of mobile subscribers by MNO (with forecast) – 2010 – 2020
Table 6 – MNO prepaid subscribers (millions) by operator – 2009 – 2020
Table 7 – MNO market share of prepaid subscribers – 2009 – 2020
Table 8 – MNO postpaid subscribers (millions) by operator – 2009 – 2019
Table 9 – MNO market share of postpaid subscribers – 2009 – 2020
Table 10 – MNO total market of prepaid and postpaid subscribers (millions) – 2009 – 2019
Table 11 – MNO total market proportion of prepaid and postpaid subscribers – 2009 – 2019
Table 12 – Prepaid as % of total subscribers by operator - 2009 – 2019
Table 13 – Postpaid as % of total subscribers by operator - 2009 – 2019
Table 14 – Total mobile services market revenue and annual change (with forecast) – 2005 – 2020
Table 15 – Mobile market revenue per major operator – 2009 – 2019
Table 16 – Mobile market revenue market share per major operator – 2009 – 2019
Table 17 – Annual change of mobile market revenue per major operator – 2010 – 2019
Table 18 – Mobile market share in revenue per major operator – 2000 – 2019
Table 19 – Blended monthly ARPU by MNO – 2000 – 2017
Table 20 – Telstra mobile ARPU - prepaid, postpaid, mobile broadband – 2008 – 2019
Table 21 – Optus mobile subscriber - monthly ARPU – 2009 – 2019
Table 22 – VHA monthly ARPU – 2015 – 2019
Table 23 – Mobile broadband subscribers and penetration (with forecast) – 2009 – 2024
Table 24 – Wireless broadband subscribers by access type – 2009 – 2018
Table 25 – Mobile broadband subscribers by mobile network operator – 2007 – 2018
Table 26 – Estimated mobile broadband data downloaded in Petabytes – 2009 – 2018
Exhibit 6 – Expiring spectrum allocation timetable – 2015 – 2028
Table 27 – Spectrum charges for spectrum bandwidth licenses
Table 28 – 1.8GHz spectrum auction results – 2016
Table 29 – 700MHz and 2.5GHz auction results
Table 30 - 1800MHz auction results – February 2016
Table 31 – Telstra Group - top line Annual financial results - 2009 – 2019
Table 32 – Telstra mobile prepaid and postpaid revenue – 2008 – 2018
Table 33 – Telstra mobile services revenue – 2009 – 2019
Table 34 – Telstra mobile ARPU - prepaid, postpaid, mobile broadband – 2008 – 2019
Table 35 – Telstra - Mobile subscribers (millions) by prepaid, postpaid, wholesale – 2008 – 2019
Table 36 – Optus mobile revenue – 2009 – 2019
Table 37 – Optus - mobile subscribers and annual change – 2008 – 2019
Table 38 – Optus -mobile pre/postpaid and mobile broadband customers (thousands) – 2008 – 2019
Table 39 – Optus mobile subscriber - monthly ARPU – 2009 – 2019
Table 40 – Vodafone Australia revenue – 2009 – 2019
Table 41 – VHA monthly ARPU – 2015 – 2019
Table 42 – Vodafone Australia (Group) – subscribers (millions) by type – 2009 – 2019
Table 43 – Historic - Retail mobile subscribers share by MNO and MVNO – 2016 – 2017
Table 44 – Historic - Retail mobile subscribers share by MNO and MVNO – 2013 – 2015
Table 45 – Amaysim Revenue and Ebitda – 2016 – 2019
Table 46 – Amaysim subscribers – 2014 – 2019
Table 47 – Internet connections via mobile handsets – 2011 – 2018
Table 48 – Australian handset platform market share – 2018
Table 49 – Historic - Annual change of mobile subscribers by carrier – 1995; 1997; 2000 – 2009
Table 50 – Historic - Retail mobile subscriber market share by MNO and MVNO – 2015 – 2016
Table 51 – Historic - Share of prepaid subscribers by MNO and MVNO – 2014 – 2015
Table 52 – Historic - Share of postpaid subscribers by MNO and MVNO – 2014 – 2015
Table 53 – Historic - Total mobile services market revenue and annual change – 1993 – 2009
Table 54 – Historic - HTA key metrics - 2009 – 2015
Table 55 – Historic - Monthly ARPU and by segment – 2009 – 2012
Table 56 – Historic - Vodafone Australia revenue – 1996; 1998 – 2008
Table 57 – Historic - VHA MVNO customers – 2014 – 2016

List of Charts

Chart 1 – Mobile subscribers and penetration (with forecast) – 2009 – 2024
Chart 2 – Market share of mobile subscribers by MNO (with forecast) – 2009 – 2020
Chart 3 – MNO market share of prepaid subscribers – 2009 – 2018
Chart 4 – MNO market share of postpaid subscribers – 2009 – 2019
Chart 5 – Total mobile services market revenue and annual change (with forecast) – 2010 – 2020
Chart 7 – Overview of mobile revenue share per major operator – 2009 – 2019
Chart 8 – Mobile broadband subscribers and penetration (with forecast) – 2009 – 2024

List of Exhibits

Exhibit 1 – The initial analogue operators – brief historic background
Exhibit 2 – Mobile spectrum by operator in capital city and regional area
Exhibit 3 – GSM services by operator
Exhibit 4 – WCDMA services by operator
Exhibit 5 – Ownership of selected frequencies for 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz services
Exhibit 7 – MVNO models
Exhibit 8 – Australian MVNOs mobile carriers

Related Reports

Purchase this Report

Contact BuddeComm

Share this Report

TMT Intelligence

A platform to scale your intelligence tasks

Monitor critical insights with our AI-powered Market Intelligence Platform gathering and analyzing intelligence in real time. With AI trained to spot emerging trends and detect new strategic opportunities, our clients use TMT Intelligence to accelerate their growth.

If you want to know more about it, please see:

TMT Intelligence Platform

Research Methodology

BuddeComm's strategic business reports contain a combination of both primary and secondary research statistics, analyses written by our senior analysts supported by a network of experts, industry contacts and researchers from around the world as well as our own scenario forecasts.

For more details, please see:

Research Methodology

More than 4,000 customers from 140 countries utilise BuddeComm Research

Are you interested in BuddeComm's Custom Research Service?

Hot Topics

News & Views

Have the latest telecommunications industry news delivered to your inbox by subscribing to BuddeComm's weekly newsletter.

Unsubscribe

Australia - Mobile Infrastructure, Broadband, Operators - Statistics and Analyses

Purchase this Report

Synopsis

Key developments:

Companies mentioned in this report:

Market analysis

COVID-19 and its impact on the telecom sector

Mobile statistics

Mobile infrastructure

Mobile spectrum overview

Mobile spectrum auctions

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)

Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)

Mobile handsets

Appendix – Historic data

Glossary of abbreviations

Related reports

Purchase this Report

Share this Report

TMT Intelligence

A platform to scale your intelligence tasks

Research Methodology

Hot Topics

News & Views