PARIS: The French mobile market saw M2M net additions improve for the third consecutive quarter to 808,000 in the three months to December 2016, bringing overall M2M connections to 11.74 million, according to Arcep’s mobile statistics.
This represented an annual growth rate of 11.1 percent, which compares with 8.8 percent in the previous quarter and 27.9 percent a year earlier.
Excluding M2M, the market reached 72.97 million mobile connections at end-December, after achieving 471,000 quarterly net additions across mainland France and the overseas territories. Annual growth improved to 1.2 percent, compared to 1.0 percent in the third quarter and 0.6 percent a year earlier. In mainland France, MVNO connections recorded negative growth over the three-month period after two positive quarters, while MNO net additions continued to improve sequentially, reaching 526,000.
The fourth quarter saw a continuation of the key trends shaping the French mobile market. Prepaid connections remained on a downward trend, while the shift towards contract-free postpaid subscriptions progressed further, with 70.0 percent of the post-paid residential market on contract-free offers in December 2016, compared with 64.8 percent a year earlier.
