Spain's telecoms regulator, CMT, has released official statistics from the end of December 2008 for the country's fixed-line telephony, broadband internet and mobile markets.
Fixed-Line
According to the CMT, there were 19.922 million main lines in operation at end-December, down 0.23% year-on-year (y/y); 12.895 million of the lines, down 0.21% y/y, belonged to the residential segment and 7.027 million to the business segment, up 0.27% y/y. The overall penetration rate stayed unchanged, at 44.1 lines per 100 inhabitants. In 2008, the users ported a total of 1.132 million fixed-line numbers, 62.9% more than a year earlier.
Broadband
The Spanish broadband accesses totalled 9.061 million, a y/y increase of 12.9%, representing a penetration rate of 20%, up from the 17.8% at end-2007. Of the broadband subscribers, 7.283 million were connected by DSL, up 13.9% y/y, and 1.778 million by cable, up 8.8% y/y. Incumbent Telefónica held 56.9%, the alternative DSL operators 22.7% and the cablecos 20.4% of the broadband market—over the final quarter of 2008, Telefónica's share of the net additions was 51.7%, against the alternatives' 35.4% and the cable companies' 12.9%. The unbundled local loops increased by 25.4% from the previous year, to 1.698 million, whereas the amount of broadband accesses delivered through resale decreased by 14.3% y/y to a total of 427,984.
Mobile
In the mobile segment, the total subscription base reached 50.897 million, an annual increase of 3.7% and equivalent to a penetration rate of 112.6 per 100 inhabitants, up from last year's 108.6%. The number of post-paid SIM cards continued growing, by 7.6% over the year and reaching 30.476 million, whereas the prepaids' share of the base was down 1.6% to 20.421 million. Telefónica's Movistar remained the market leader with its share of 44.7%, ahead of Vodafone's 31%, Orange's 20.6%, and Yoigo's 1.9%; MVNOs accounted for 1.8% of the market. Of the final quarter's net additions, Yoigo achieved 44.3%, the MVNOs 29.6%, Vodafone 18.5%, and Orange 7.4%; Telefónica remained more or less flat with 0.2% of the quarterly net additions. Alone in December, the mobile users ported 378,302 numbers, 9.6% more than in December 2007.
Outlook and Implications
The effects of the economic crisis and decline in spending by consumers as well as businesses shows most clearly in the mobile sector, where low-cost carrier Yoigo, part of TeliaSonera, and similarly positioned virtual operators have achieved the largest gains of net additions. In the case of Yoigo, despite of its generally promising operation performance, the Swedish-Finnish parent company has, however, expressed concern over the financial burden of its strategy—keeping alive the speculation that the operator might change ownership in the medium term. In the broadband sector, Telefónica remains stronger than most of other European incumbents; changed spending patterns show in somewhat-weaker net additions against the alternative DSL operators as the market leader has decided not to respond to the crisis by substantial price cuts on this market either.
