Pay TV penetration increased almost 10% in the last year

One in three Spanish homes with fixed broadband already has fiber optics. The prices of telecommunications packages and services rose around 3% year-on-year, according to the CNMC.

83.4% of all households had an Internet connection in the second quarter of 2016, according to data from the Household Panel prepared by the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), which represented a growth of 5% year-on-year. Regarding the number of households that contracted pay television services, the increase was even greater, 9.4% in one year, so the penetration of this service reached 26.7% of households.

76.1% of homes had a fixed broadband connection and of these, 36.2% declared they had fiber optics, thirteen points more than a year before.

For their part, 91.1% of individuals had mobile telephony and of these, eight out of ten contracted a postpaid service.

Regarding equipment, the percentage of homes that had television connected to the Internet (Smart TV) exceeded 28%, with a year-on-year growth of 17.3%.

On the other hand, average expenses on telecommunications services, in general, increased moderately in the last year. For example, the fees for double packages (telephony and fixed broadband) and quadruple packages (fixed and mobile telephony, and fixed and mobile broadband) increased by 3.5% year-on-year to 40.1 and 47.8 euros per month, respectively.

Thus, the total expenditure on all telecommunications services of a household that contracted a quadruple package reached 65.4 euros per month (3.4% more than a year ago) and the total expenditure of the household with a five-fold package (landline and mobile telephony, fixed and mobile broadband and pay TV) stood at 83.9 euros per month (3.8% more).

The moderate increase in expenses was also observed in the case of unpackaged postpaid mobile telephony, which experienced an increase of 2.5% in the last year, reaching 17.1 euros per month per individual.

Contrary contracting

The joint contracting of telecommunications services in homes and the growth in the number of broadband and pay television connections have meant that one in four homes had fixed and mobile telephony, Internet and pay TV. For their part, half of the homes had landline, mobile and Internet telephony.

Finally, as in the two previous waves of the Household Panel, the reason most cited among households for having pay television is that it is offered together with other services (47.1%).

The CNMC carried out this third wave of its Household Panel throughout the second quarter of 2016 and included 4,685 households and 9,317 individuals.