Spanish Internet update

The figures for August broadband net adds have been published, with some interesting results.

Out of total growth of about 65k lines, roughly 27k for Telefonica ADSL, 19k for unbundled ADSL, and 19k for cable broadband.

I was surprised by the figure of 19k unbundled lines, for this is part of a zero-sum game: the other way to look at this is that Telefonica lost 19k lines, in a single month, in what is the slowest month of the year.

That gives an annual run-rate of almost 250k lines that Telefonica will lose in the next year. But if we consider that August net adds are typically about 1/3 of the average throughout the year, then we should start to consider that in the next year Telefonica is likely to lose 750k lines.

This projection, admittedly riddled with assumptions, could get even worse because unbundling continues to grow faster as a percentage of total net adds (it was almost negligible at the start of the year, and now represents almost 30% of net adds).

Factoring in further growth in unbundled lines as a share of total growth, and we just might see Telefonica losing 1 million lines in the coming year- a staggering loss.

Link (in Spanish): Asociacion de Internautas.

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