IHS Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | The figures released by the German telecoms regulator show that the number of fixed voice accesses totalled 39.09 million in Germany last year, up 1.2% from 38.62 million in 2007. |
Implications | The growth happened on the back of VoIP subscriptions, which by the same token increased the alternative operators' share of the accesses to 26.4%, against 18.8% in 2007. |
Outlook | Local-loop unbundling and investments by cable operators in their network infrastructure has allowed VoIP telephony to proliferate, with fixed-to-mobile substitution at the same time adding to the decline in traditional telephony. |
The annual report for 2008 of the Bundesnetzagentur (BNA), Germany's telecoms regulator, shows that the alternative carriers' share of the German fixed-line voice market in terms of accesses reached 26.4% last year, up from 18.8% in 2007. The total number of the accesses increased by 1.2% year-on-year (y/y) to 39.09 million from 38.62 million, owing to the growth in VoIP telephony services. The VoIP subscriptions numbered 3.7 million at end-2008, up from 1.51 million a year earlier. Of these, 2.2 million were DSL VoIP accesses—served over unbundled local loops (ULL)—and 1.5 million cable telephony accesses; practically all were provided by the alternative operators.
Fixed voice accesses in Germany 2007-2008 | ||||||
2007 | 2008 | |||||
Total (mil.) | Alternates (mil.) | Alternates (%) | Total (mil.) | Alternates (mil.) | Alternates (%) | |
Analogue | 24.00 | 1.516 | 6.3 | 22.36 | 2.042 | 9.1 |
ISDN | 13.00 | 4.218 | 32.4 | 12.93 | 4.568 | 35.3 |
Public telephones | 0.108 | 0.003 | 2.9 | 0.104 | 0.003 | 2.7 |
Cable VoIP | 0.810 | 0.810 | 100 | 1.500 | 1.500 | 100 |
DSL VoIP | 0.700 | 0.700 | 100 | 2.202 | 2.200 | 99.9 |
Total | 38.62 | 7.25 | 18.8 | 39.09 | 10.31 | 26.4 |
Source: Bundesnetzagentur | ||||||
The traffic generated by traditional (including analogue, ISDN and public) fixed telephony users amounted to 164 billion minutes, down 2.5% from 168 billion in 2007. The spoken minutes were split by 56% and 44% between Deutsche Telekom and the alternates, which was virtually unchanged from 2007. Of the traditional telephone traffic, the alternates—mostly over call-by-call (CPC) and carrier preselection (CPS)—provided 73% of the international calls and 41% of the domestic calls, against 73% and 42% in 2007 respectively. The resale telephony (i.e. CPC/CPS) accounted for 33% and the direct accesses (including VoIP) for 67% of all traffic delivered by the incumbent's competitors, against 45% and 55% a year earlier respectively; in 2006, the share of the resale traffic stood still at 59% against 41%.
Outlook and Implications
- Fixed-to-Mobile Substitution, VoIP Erode Traditional Telephony Further: The figures reflect the two ongoing trends in the German telecoms market: on one hand an increasing share of mobile-only customers and on the other hand the migration to VoIP among the fixed-line customers, owing to increasingly broadband-compatible cable networks as well as the grown number of ULLs. Bitkom, an industry association comprising Deutsche Telekom's competitors, points out that the decline in traditional telephony has generally been somewhat slower in Germany than elsewhere—mostly because of the prevalence of attractive flat-rate offerings for the traditional accesses—but predicts also that in 2009 the process will speed up further, resulting in an estimated decrease of 3-4% in the volume of traffic. Citing data from Germany's federal statistics office, Bitkom adds that last year just under 9% of the German households used exclusively mobile phones for their voice services—according to the BNA, at end-2008 there were a total of 107.245 million mobile subscribers, up 10.4% from 2007 and representing a penetration rate of 130.6%, against 118.1% a year earlier.