According to the data available to the Communications Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Lithuania (RRT), the revenues of the Lithuanian communications sector continued to increase and totalled EUR 904.6 million, which was by 4.7% or by 40.2 million euro more than in 2018. The revenue of both markets constituting this sector increased over the year: postal service market – by 11.7% or EUR 20.1 million, electronic communications market – by 2.9% or EUR 20.1 million. The revenue of postal service market has shown a quite significant increase for 11 consecutive years. It has increased 3 times since 2009 (up to EUR 191.1 million). In terms of the total revenue of the communications sector, the share of postal service market has been increasing on a yearly basis and totalled 21.1% in 2019 (in 2018 – 19.8%).
As seen on the electronic communications market, traditional services are being replaced with internet-based alternatives – in 2019, the revenue from the provision of data transmission service exceeded the revenue from telephony services for the first time. In 2019, data communication service providers earned EUR 320.5 million revenue, whereas telephone communication providers – EUR 308.3 million revenue (in 2018, EUR 279.6 million and EUR 334.0 million, respectively). A similar tendency has been observed in the international roaming communication segment as well – the revenue from voice calls, sending of SMS and MMS decreased by a third, however, the revenue from internet access services increased by a third accordingly. Similar growth tendencies are also expected to last for the next several years.
Similar developments have been observed in the television segment as well. In 2019, the revenue from internet television (IPTV) (EUR 32.4 million or 46.0% of all pay-TV revenue) exceeded the revenue from traditional cable TV services for the first time (EUR 27.5 million or 39.1% of all pay-TV revenue). In terms of the number of subscribers, cable TV is still in the lead, however, their number decreased by 5.1% over the year, whereas the number of IPTV television subscribers increased by 9.5%. The number of IPTV television subscribers is assumed to exceed the number of cable TV subscribers in the perspective of the next five years.
According to the data of RRT, the number of mobile broadband internet users exceeded the number of fibre-optic internet users in 2019. The monthly volume of data sent and received by a single user via mobile communication networks increased in 2019 and amounted to 13.6 GB and that is by 10 times more than in 2015 and 35.4% more than in 2018. Such acceleration in the use of data is also expected to remain in the future.
The influence of new technologies is obvious in the postal services sector as well. More and more areas of our lives are moving to the digital space, people are making increasingly more purchases online and that conditions the increase in the number of postal parcels. In 2019, as compared with 2018, the number of postal parcels increased by 20.3% and totalled 20.6 million units, 6.3 million units of which were constituted by international postal parcels. Furthermore, a considerable investment was made in the development of postal self-service terminals (parcel lockers) – in 2019, their number increased by 1.6 times (up to 550 units). It is a huge leap towards the modern postal activity. With the increasing accessibility to this services and expansion of innovative service provision models developed by the providers, all that remains is to expect that the postal services market will continue to grow successfully.
The overview of the Lithuanian communications sector for 2019 has been prepared according to the data submitted to the RRT by electronic communications operators and service providers as well as postal service providers on the activities of provision of electronic communications and postal services in 2019. A full report on the Lithuanian communications sector for 2019 is published on RRT’s website at: https://www.rrt.lt/d/2019-m-lietuvos-rysiu-sektoriaus-ataskaita/.
Updated on 2020-07-09