Telecommunications Market Data Update Q1 2018

Published: 30 August 2018

Last updated: 16 March 2023

In this update we highlight some of the key trends emerging this quarter from the data we collect on the UK telecommunications sector.

Fixed voice services

Fixed voice service revenues totalled £2.0bn in Q1 2018, a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 1.6% and down 4.8% from Q1 2017.
Access revenues accounted for 77.7% of total fixed voice service revenues, a 1.5 percentage point increase compared to a year previously. BT’s share of total fixed voice revenues remained stable year-on-year at 43.6%.
The total number of fixed exchange lines (including PSTN lines and ISDN channels) was 33.0 million at the end of Q1 2018, a fall of 318k (1.0%) compared to a year previously.
UK fixed lines generated 12.3 billion minutes of outgoing calls in Q1 2018, down by 17.1% (2.5 billion) compared to a year previously.

There were 26.2 million UK fixed broadband connections at the end of Q1 2018, a year-on-year increase of 2.1% (546k), and a 0.6% (151k) increase compared to the previous quarter. BT (including EE)’s share of these lines was 35.7%, a decrease of 0.2pp from Q4 2017.
There were 10.0 million ‘Other (inc. FTTx)’ fixed broadband lines, predominantly comprised of superfast fibre broadband connections, at the end of Q1 2018.
These connections represented 38.2% of all UK fixed broadband connections, a year-on-year increase of 7.6pp.

Mobile telephony services generated £3.8bn in retail revenues in Q1 2018, a £95m (-2.4%) decrease from the previous quarter and an £18m (0.5%) increase compared to a year previously.
The number of active mobile subscriptions (excluding M2M connections) was 84.1 million at the end of Q1 2018, up 0.3 million (0.4%) from a year previously. Over the same period, the number of dedicated mobile broadband subscriptions remained the same at 5 million.
Average revenue per subscriber in Q1 2018 was £15.21, with post-pay subscribers generating more revenue than pre-pay subscribers (at £20.24 and £4.71 respectively).