National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology of the Republic of Moldova

In the first quarter of 2015, the total revenue from the Internet access at fixed locations increased compared to the same period of 2014 by more than 13,1% (29,7 million lei) up to 256 million lei. The number of fixed Internet subscribers increased 1,4% over the end of 2014, (+7,3 thousand) and exceeded 516,5 thousand. These data are included in the Report of the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI) on the development of the market for data transmission and Internet access at fixed locations in the first three months of 2015, published on ANRCETI official website.

According to the data aggregated by ANRCETI, out of the 61 providers of fixed Internet access, the companies Starnet Solutii and Moldtelecom recorded highest increase of sales: by 28,6% and up to 62,5 million lei for Starnet Solutii and by 9,8% up to 159,5 million lei for Moldtelecom. The revenues for fixed Internet access services provided by Orange Moldova increased by 1%, up to 4,9 million lei, while the cumulative volume of sales by 58 other providers of these services increased by 5,2% and totaled over 29,1million lei. Following this development, the average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) for Internet access services at fixed locations increased by 4,4% and totaled about 166,4 lei.The increase of sales on this market segment was mainly driven by the increase in the number of subscribers to broadband Internet access services, their use of attractive offers for high speed Internet connections, which contain several services included in a package.

In the reporting timeframe, the majority of subscribers to Internet access services at fixed locations chose high-speed Internet. Thus, the number of subscribers connect to the Internet via optical fiber (FTTx - Fiber to the premises) increased by 9,3 thousand (+3,6%) up to about 269,3 thousand, the number of subscribers connected via coaxial cable – by more than one thousand (+2,8%) and made up over 36,9 thousand, the number of subscribers connected to the network based on xDSL technologies (Digital Subscriber Line) dropped over 2,5 thousand (-1.2% ) and constituted 209.2 thousand. At the end of the first quarter, 52,1% of the total number of fixed Internet subscribers were using FTTx technology, 40,5% – xDSL technologies and 7,1% – coaxial cable.

The data aggregated by ANRCETI show that most subscribers to fixed Internet access – 40,2% of their total number – use access speeds over 30 Mbps. Thus, 35,7% of subscribers access the Internet at speeds between 30 and 100 Mbps and 4,5% – at speeds above 100 Mbps. Also, 33,6% of subscribers use Internet access speeds between 2 and 10Mbps, 17,2% – 10-30 Mbps and 9% – speeds up to 2 Mbps.

At the end of the reporting period, the market positions by turnover of the largest providers of data transmission and fixed Internet access – Moldtelecom, Starnet Solutii and Orange Moldova – changed slightly. Compared with the first quarter of 2014, the market share of Starnet Solutii increased by 2,8 percentage points (pp) and made up 23,1%, the market share of Moldtelecom decreased by 2,1 pp and constituted 61,9%, Orange Moldova share decreased 0,3 pp and made 2,7%. The market share of other 58 providers was 12,3%.

Other data about the evolution of the market for data transmission and Internet access at fixed locations in the first quarter of 2015 are available on ANRCETI Web page: www.anrceti.md, section Statistical Data.

June 18, 2015