Reading the latest edition of Arcep’s telecom market observatory must have delighted telecom operators. According to figures from the regulator of the sector, their income in the retail market increased for the second consecutive year by 1.8%, after ten years of decline.
This increase is mainly due to sustained growth in mobile services of around +4.5% after more timid increases of 1% and 2% in 2020 and 2019. During the health crisis, operators were notably affected by a fall in the sale of mobile terminals.
Fixed services experienced a slight decline of 0.3%. Revenue growth in broadband and very high speed of 2.4% in 2022, one point less in one year, fails to fully offset the decline in revenue from narrowband services (-15.4%).
France has mostly opted for fiber
The curves crossed in the middle of last year. Optical fiber is now the majority in our country. 18.1 million subscribers are fiber. They represent 57% of the total number of internet subscriptions at the end of 2022 (+11 points in one year). Mechanically, the number of broadband accesses, in particular on ADSL technologies, continues to fall sharply (-2.6 million in 2022).
If the fiber optic connection decreases in intensity – 3.6 million more subscriptions in 2022 against 4.1 million in 2021 – it remains at a high level. The room for improvement also remains significant with 34.5 million connectable premises. Arcep notes that, this year again, it is the public initiative networks (RIP) – supported by local authorities – which are the main driving force behind the deployment of fiber.
10% of 5G subscribers
On the mobile network side, we are seeing a fairly similar movement with the deployment of 5G. Two years after its commercial launch, the new standard for mobile communications has won over 5.2 million users in one year. In total, the number of active cards on 5G networks amounted to 8.2 million at the end of December 2022, i.e. 10% of the total volume of SIM cards in circulation.
And it’s not over. 5G coverage will ramp up over the next two years with 8,000 new dedicated sites per operator in 2024 and 10,500 sites in 2025. The growth in 4G and 5G users goes hand in hand with the increase in data usage on these mobile networks. Average data consumption per active subscriber reached 14 GB per month, up 17% in one year.
A 1.8% drop in investments
Other good news for operators, the bulk of the investments to be made to deploy these new technologies seems to be behind them. Market players have invested 14.6 billion euros in 2022, excluding purchases of mobile frequencies. If it remains at a high stage, higher than the expenditure made before 2020, this level of investment shows a drop of 1.8% in one year.
Expenditure on the deployment of very high-speed fixed and mobile local loops, which alone represents 8.1 billion euros, shows a drop of 3.7%. For Arcep, this decline is explained in particular by the slowdown in the growth of the number of premises connectable to fiber.
The telecoms policeman is delighted with a high level of pooling of fixed and mobile networks. Thanks to the various co-investment methods, 75% of premises connectable to fiber optic networks are eligible for at least four operators. Since 2009, a law has also required any operator who deploys fiber optic lines to allow other operators to access them.
Similarly, 47% of mobile network media are shared in mainland France, and 60% in rural areas. Arcep is in favor of more pooling in the most rural areas. “It contributes to improving coverage and quality of service, as well as reducing the environmental footprint. »
