Telecommunications Market Data Update Q2 2023

Published: 26 October 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 service revenues totalled £1.32bn in Q2 2023; a decline of £12.1m (0.9%) from the previous quarter and £120.9m (8.4%) year-on-year. BT’s share of these revenues was 49.6%.
The total number of fixed lines (including PSTN lines, ISDN channels and managed VoIP connections) fell by 858k (2.9%) during the quarter to 28.6 million.
Total fixed-originated call volumes fell by 1528 million minutes (19.2%) year on year, to 6.44 billion minutes.

There were 28.2 million fixed broadband lines at the end of Q2 2023, an increase of 139k (0.5%) year on year.
There were 20.3 million ‘other inc. FTTx’ broadband connections (predominantly fibre-to-the-cabinet and full fibre connections) at the end of Q2 2023, accounting for 72.0% of all lines.
The number of ADSL lines declined by 165k (6.2%) during the quarter, while the number of cable lines declined by 46k (0.8%) and the number of ‘other inc. FTTx’ lines grew by 248k (1.2%).

Mobile telephony services generated £3.47bn in retail revenues in Q2 2023, a £249.0m (7.7%) increase from a year previously.
Average monthly retail revenue per subscriber was £13.32 in Q2 2023, with post-pay subscribers generating more revenue than pre-pay users (averaging £16.18 compared to £5.18 for pre-pay).
The number of active mobile subscriptions (excluding M2M) was 87.1 million at the end of Q2 2023, down 504k (0.6%) from the year before.
Over the same period, the number of dedicated mobile broadband subscriptions decreased by 54k (1.1%) to 4.9 million.
The number of mobile-originated voice call minutes fell by 3.25 billion (7.8%) to 38.66 billion minutes year-on-year, with calls to landlines decreasing by 12.2% to 7.52 billion minutes.
The number of mobile messages (including SMS and MMS) saw a year-on-year decline, down 1.41 billion messages (15.5%) to 7.64 billion.
Data usage grew, with volumes up 470 PB (27.0%) year-on-year to 2213 PB.