New Zealand - Mobile Infrastructure, Broadband, Operators - Statistics and Analyses

Synopsis

New Zealand’s mobile market continues to undergo significant developments. There have been considerable gains made in LTE services, with effective competition between Spark, Vodafone NZ and the country’s third mobile operator 2degrees. Coverage from LTE networks has widened considerably in recent quarters, while network operators also provide among the fastest LTE data rates globally.

Mobile market penetration is growing slowly but steadily as customers make greater use of cheaper bundled offerings and mobile data services. Growth is also being stimulated by wider coverage provided under the RBI: indeed the wider RBI footprint contributed to the demise of the fixed-wireless broadband provider Woosh Wireless.

This report provides market analyses as well as operating and revenue statistics for the New Zealand mobile market and the key operators.

Key developments:

Commerce Commission planning a review of competition in the mobile market in 2018; Vodafone New Zealand and Spark commit to using LoRa technologies from 2018; Vodafone New Zealand reports 2.8% increase in revenue for fiscal 2017; Sky and Vodafone abort merger plans; Spark partners with Nokia to develop a path to 5G; Vodafone ramps up RBI speeds to 30Mb/s; 2degrees extends LTE to 85% of its network; Spark and Vodafone deploy 700MHz LTE wireless broadband in rural areas; report update includes telcos’ financial and operating results for fiscal 2017, regulator’s market updates for 2016, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

2degrees, Skinny, Clear Mobitel, TelstraClear, Black+White, CallPlus, Compass, Gemalto, Orcon, Vodafone New Zealand, Spark New Zealand.

Table of Contents

1. Synopsis
2. Market analysis
3. Mobile statistics
- 3.1 General statistics
- 3.2 Revenue analysis
- 3.3 Mobile voice
- 3.4 Mobile data
  - 3.4.1 Short Message Service (SMS)
- 3.5 Mobile broadband
4. Regulatory issues
- 4.1 Spectrum
  - 4.1.1 Overview
  - 4.1.2 Spectrum auctions
- 4.2 Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs)
- 4.3 Mobile Number Portability (NP)
5. Mobile infrastructure
- 5.1 Digital networks
- 5.2 Long-term-Evolution (LTE)
  - 5.2.1 Spark
  - 5.2.2 Vodafone NZ
  - 5.2.3 2degrees Mobile
- 5.3 5G developments
- 5.4 Other infrastructure developments
  - 5.4.1 Machine-to-Machine (M2M)
  - 5.4.2 Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT)
6. Major mobile operators
- 6.1 Spark Mobile
- 6.2 Vodafone New Zealand
- 6.3 2degrees Mobile
7. Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)
8. Mobile content and applications
- 8.1 NFC payments
- 8.2 M-health
9. Related reports

Table 1 – Mobile voice traffic – 2006 - 2018
Table 2 – Mobile voice traffic use per connection – 2006 - 2016
Table 3 – Mobile subscribers, annual change and penetration rate – 2001 - 2018
Table 4 – Annual change in mobile subscribers per major operator – 2002 - 2016
Table 5 – Historic - Market share of mobile subscribers per operator – 1995 - 2004
Table 6 – Market share of mobile subscribers per operator – 2005 - 2016
Table 7 – Spark prepaid versus postpaid subscribers – 2005 - 2017
Table 8 – Vodafone prepaid versus postpaid subscribers – 2005 - 2016
Table 9 – Spark and Vodafone network termination rates – 2009 - 2014
Table 10 – Mobile market revenue – 2006 - 2018
Table 11 – SMS messages sent – 2009 - 2018
Table 12 – Mobile data use per connection – 2010 - 2016
Table 13 – Mobile broadband traffic – 2010 - 2018
Table 14 – Active mobile broadband subscribers and penetration – 2010 - 2016
Table 16 – Spark mobile service revenue – 2009 - 2017
Table 17 – Spark capex – 2011 - 2017
Table 18 – Spark mobile subscribers – 2001 - 2017
Table 20 – Vodafone mobile subscribers – 2007 - 2016
Table 21 – Vodafone company financial data – 2012 - 2017
Table 22 – Vodafone company investment – 2015 - 2016
Table 23 – Vodafone New Zealand spectrum licences
Table 24 – 2degrees mobile subscribers – 2009 – 2012; 2015
Table 25 – 2degrees key financial performance figures – 2008 - 2016