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Stuttgart, Germany – 21st February, 2006 – Fixed telephony usage continued to decrease in 2005. The decline of fixed line voice minutes (national local and long distance) can be attributed to fixed mobile substitution as more users turn to mobile phones to make calls or even abandon their fixed line subscription altogether. Among the four countries shown in the chart, the UK and Italy, the two largest countries in terms of volume and usage,
were those who experienced the strongest decline in traffic between 2004 and 2005 with -5.8% and -6.8%, respectively.
The UK had the highest volume of minutes at 110.3 bn in 2005 as well as the highest annual usage per inhabitant at
1 800 minutes; Italy had 90.8 bn minutes and an annual usage of 1 550 minutes. On the other hand, in France and Spain,
two countries recording a lower fixed line usage per inhabitant, overall fixed line voice traffic either stagnated
(in France) or slightly declined (in Spain).
Accompanying the downward trend in minutes is the decreasing share of minutes by the incumbents in all four countries. Telecom Italia managed to hold a strong share, with 81.6% in 1Q05 and 79.3% in 4Q05 while BT had saw its share decline from 55.1% in 1Q05 to 50.1% in 4Q05. For its part, France Telecom had 66.0% in 1Q05 and about 64.0% in 4Q05.
Fig. 1– National fixed line voice minutes for residential and business customers
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