NEWS | Wednesday, 26 March 2008

Maltese telecoms market consolidating into a handful of quad-play operators, EU warns

Charlot Zahra

It is latest progress report on the implementation of the Single European Communications Market, the European Commission (EC) said that Malta’s communications market was consolidating into a handful of quad-play telecoms operators.
“While the fixed incumbent and the main cable operator each remained dominant in their respective markets, 2007 was characterised by a drive to create converged fixed-mobile service operators.
“Broadband penetration grew at a faster rate this year (to 17%) after some previous slow-down and the market saw decreased prices,” however Malta remained short of the EU average of 20% of broadband subscriptions.
Moreover, the EC said “consumers’ choice of mobile operators is set to improve following the allocation of the third 3G licence” in August last year to 3G Telecommunications Limited (the licence was subsequently acquired by Melita Cable), which might also lead to a positive effect on prices, which are “among the highest in the EU”.
The EC warned that there was certainly room for more competition in the fixed telephony sector, “as the incumbent continues to be dominant with a 98% market share.”
The report also highlighted the fact that alternative broadband operators were struggling, losing their market share from 21% in January 2007 to 14.4% in January this year, mostly to the benefit of GO’s ISP subsidiary, which strengthened its position on the retail broadband market for the fourth consecutive year to reach a market share of 41%
“While cable broadband is widespread, the incumbent’s ADSL (formerly known as Datastream) still accounts for 55.5% of all retail broadband lines,” the EC said.

Read: Towards convergence