Image: Fizkes/Shutterstock
Ireland is becoming a nation of data-hungry, mobile-first consumers who use fixed lines for data rather than voice.
Of all mobile subscriptions in Ireland, 49.4pc are now on 4G services, according to the latest quarterly figures from ComReg.
ComReg’s Q2 2018 report reveals that almost three-quarters (74.6pc) of fixed broadband connections in Ireland are equal to or greater than 30Mbps. This is up from 68.7pc a year earlier.
According to ComReg, overall the telecoms market Ireland is holding steady with a slight 0.4pc increase in revenues to €872.3m for the quarter, up from €868.7m in 2017.
Snapshot of a digital island
Source: ComReg
The figures show that Ireland is a mobile nation, with fixed-line networks mainly used to transport data.
Mobile minutes (3.1bn minutes) now form the majority of voice traffic in Ireland while fixed-line minutes (785m) stand at just 20pc of all calls – a 10.8pc decline.
On a monthly basis, the average mobile subscriber used 214 minutes, sent 75 SMS messages (down 10.7pc) and used 5.8GB of data, which is up 40pc on last year.
As of Q2 2018, the mobile operator with the highest proportion of post-paid subscriptions was Vodafone (65.6pc), followed by Three Group (59.6pc), Eir (51.8pc) and Tesco Mobile (15.9pc).
Machine-to-machine (M2M) subscriptions increased to 930,806, which is a 24.6pc annual increase and accounted for 15.2pc of all mobile subscriptions.
In Q2 2018, Vodafone Group had the largest market share of M2M subscriptions at 49.2pc, followed by Three Group with 48.2pc of market share. Eir had the remaining 2.6pc of M2M subscriptions.
