U.K. Telecom Market Revenues Drop for 4th Year in a Row

Overall revenue earned by all U.K. telecom service providers fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2012, driven by weakness in the wholesale segment of the business and voice services, according to the latest analysis by Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator.

The nearly two percent overall revenue shortfall of £0.7 billion (1.8 percent) resulted in annual revenues of  £38.8 billion, largely as a result of a £1.0 billion fall in wholesale revenues and weakness in voice services.

As you would expect, mobile and Internet access revenues grew.

Retail revenue increased by £0.2 billion to £27.5 billion during 2012. Business data services grew by £0.1 billion). In other words, consumers and businesses were spending slightly more, overall.

Mobile services revenue grew  £0.3 billion, while fixed network Internet access revenue grew  £0.3 billion, representing the growing parts of U.K. service provider revenues.

The weakness in the fixed network market came from voice services, which saw a £0.3 billion revenue decrease.

On average, a typical U.K. household increased its monthly spending on communications services by £1.31.

The total number of active mobile subscribers increased by 1.1 million in 2012, as did the

total number of fixed broadband connections.

During the year, the number of fixed broadband connections operating with a headline

speed of 30 Mbps or higher increased from 1.1 million to 3.3 million as consumers migrated

to faster services.

Call volumes from both fixed and mobile phones decreased in 2012, with the former down by eight billion minutes to 103 billion minutes and the latter down by one billion minutes to 122 billion minutes.