There are no real surprises in the data published. Highlights include:

  • There was a continuing decline in overall industry retail revenues (€3.15 billion for the 12 months to December 2013), down 2.9% since Q4 2012
  • In line with recent trends, ARPU mobile continued to decline during 2013. Mobile ARPU at the end of December 2013 was €27 per month, compared to €29 per month at the end of December 2012  
  • Total broadband subscriptions increased to just over 1.6 million, up 1.3% compared to Q4 2012
  • Fixed voice subscriptions increased by 4.4% over the last year to just over 1.5 million subscriptions
  • While total voice traffic (in minutes) increased 0.4% in the last year, the majority of the increase was attributable to mobile voice traffic.  Fixed voice traffic on the other hand suffered a decline of 10.6% from the same period in the previous year. The figures appear to reflect the increasing attractive mobile deals available on the market, and the overall trend away from fixed to mobile communications
  • Unsurprisingly, the number of smartphone and tablet users continued to increase during 2013 to just over 2.6 million, up 9.2% for the year.  It is likely that the launch of Apple's new iPhone 5 and the iPad Air contributed to this take-up

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