Malta Communications Authority (MCA) chairman, Ing. Philip Micallef said the 18 per cent increase to 70 million minutes talk by Maltese subscribers on their mobile phones clearly reflects the increasing level of competition in the local mobile telephony market.
He was commenting on the “Post and Telecommunications: Q1/2009” report published by the National Statistics Office (NSO) and said that this data contributes to a greater understanding of changing patterns of local communications services. Very significant developments continued to be registered on every front of the mobile telephony market, with the resultant positive impact on usage.
When referring to the mobile telephony sector, Ing. Micallef pointed out that February 2009 marked the entry of Melita Mobile – the third full service mobile telephony operator in Malta using the latest generation of 3G mobile technology.
In terms of statistics for this particular quarter, the total number of subscribers went up to 388,356, a four per cent increase on the figures of the first quarter of 2008.
Ing. Micallef also noted that the effect of competition is being viewed positively in terms of an increase in usage although he noted that the latest statistics indicate that Malta still lags behind in terms of the cost of mobile telephony when compared to other European countries.
Ing. Micallef remarked that fixed telephony is still the most commonly used form of communication in Malta, with a total of approximately 181 million fixed-originating minutes registered in this quarter, including international calls, a 16 per cent increase over the same period last year. This continues to go contrary to the strong downward trends exhibited in this market in most other EU states – the number of fixed line subscribers locally increased by three per cent from the end of 2008 to a total of approximately 247,000. The on-going growth in subscriptions is partly attributed to a number of consumers purchasing fixed line access to the public telephone network from more than one operator instead of switching.
Malta’s broadband penetration rate surpassed the EU average penetration rate of 22.9 per cent by one per cent as at January 2009. The MCA chairman commented that the distribution of Internet subscribers (51 per cent cable Internet, 46 per cent DSL and three per cent WiMAX) did not change from the first quarter of 2008, this notwithstanding the fact that the total number of subscribers increased by 14 per cent over the same period last year, to a total of 103,528. Regarding television distribution services Ing. Philip Micallef said that this market also continues to confirm an upward trend in terms of subscriptions with an increase of approximately 11 per cent over Q1 2008, reaching a total of approximately 135,000 subscribers.