Although bundled services are becoming increasingly popular throughout Europe, their take-up varies considerably from country to country.
A report just published by the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE) on Poland’s telecom market makes the point that the penetration of such services was only 21%, or jointly lowest with Italy in the EU28, in 2014. The Netherlands had the highest (75%), with the EU average being 46%.
The report also says there were huge disparities, some quite surprising, in the cost of receiving bundle services in the EU28. In the case of double play (fixed internet and fixed telephony), it was a whopping €79.24 a month in the most expensive market Latvia, compared to €26.32 in the cheapest, Denmark. Poland, at €48.03, was close to the EU average of €41.44.
Meanwhile, in the case of triple play (fixed internet, fixed telephony and TV), Latvia was again in top spot with €91.30, whereas its neighbour Estonia was bottom with €36.97. Again, Poland was, at €51.69, close to the EU average of €55.08.
Looking specifically at Poland, the report says that last year bundled services were used by over 4.2 million people and the market was worth some €477 million. It also says the most popular bundle – there were a total of 42 different packages – was fixed line internet and TV, which was chosen by almost one in three (30%) users.
Furthermore, double play bundles generated the most revenues, in fact accounting for 66% of the total. Quadruple play, on the other hand, claimed only 1.8%, which was way behind triple play’s 31.8%, and quintuple play barely registered.
That was not to say the latter didn’t exist, accounting for 0.3% of subscribers. Again, double play claimed the lion’s share at 66.7%, followed by triple play (31%) and quadruple play (2%).
As to which companies claimed the highest share of bundle users, it was probably no surprise that Orange (20.2%) and UPC Polska (19.5%) found themselves battling it out for top spot.
However, what was surprising was how low the shares of Cyfrowy Polsat and Multimedia Polska were, at 2.7% and 1.6% respectively.
Bundled services are undoubtedly the way forward for operators throughout Europe. It does seem surprising, though, that Poland, with such a dynamic telecom market, finds itself some distance behind other countries.
