Telecommunications Market Data Update Q2 2020

Published: 22 October 2020

Last updated: 16 March 2023

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

Fixed voice services

UK fixed voice services generated £1.8bn in revenue in Q2 2020; a fall of £37m (2.0%) compared to the previous quarter. BT’s share of these revenues fell by 0.1pp to 47.7%. during the quarter.
Access and add-on call bundles generated £1.6bn in revenue in Q2 2020, accounting for 87.0% of total fixed voice revenues.
There were 32.3 million fixed exchange lines (including PSTN and ISDN channels) at the end of Q2 2020, 62k (0.2%) fewer than at the end of Q1.
Total fixed-generated voice call volumes increased by 1.7 billion minutes (16.6%) to 12.2 billion minutes during the quarter, largely due to Covid-19 lockdown resulting in people being at home.

There were 27.0 million fixed broadband lines at the end of Q2 2020, an increase of 78k (0.3%) from the previous quarter.
The number of ADSL lines fell by 465k (6.9%) in Q2 2020, while the number of cable broadband lines increased by 56k (1.1%) and the number of ‘Other inc. FTTx’ lines (predominantly fibre broadband connections) increased by 488k (3.2%).
There were 15.6 million ‘Other inc. FTTx’ broadband lines at the end of Q2 2020, accounting for 57.8% of all UK fixed broadband connections.

Mobile telephony services generated £3.2bn in retail revenues in Q2 2020, a £174m (5.2%) decrease from a year previously.
Average monthly revenue per subscriber was £12.77 in Q2 2020, with post-pay subscribers generating more revenue than pre-pay users on average (£15.55 compared to £5.47).
The number of active mobile subscriptions (excluding M2M) was 83.1 million at the end of Q2 2020, down 0.6 million (0.7%) from a year previously. Over the same period, the number of dedicated mobile broadband subscriptions increased by 0.3 million 6.2%, to 4.7 million.
The number of mobile-originated voice calls minutes increased by 10.0 billion (24.9%) to 50 billion minutes in Q2 2020, with calls to landlines increasing by 37.9% to 11.4 billion minutes. These increases are likely due to the Covid-19 restrictions, which began in late March 2020.
Roaming call volumes decreased by 57.1% to 0.3 billion minutes compared to a year previously, again likely due to Covid-related travel restrictions.
The number of mobile messages (including SMS and MMS) saw a significant year-on-year decline, down 5.7 billion messages (34.5%) to 10.8 billion.
Data usage continued to increase rapidly, up 220 PB (28%) year-on-year to 1,007 PB.