Vodafone has been the big winner in the Australian mobile phone market over the past year, claiming a larger share of both pre-paid and post-paid services, Roy Morgan Research shows.
In the six months to October 2016, Vodafone was the mobile service provider for 19.4 per cent of all consumer phones used by Australians aged 14+ (which includes main mobiles as well as any second and even third mobiles they pay for). This is an increase in Vodafone’s market share of 0.9 percentage points since the same period in 2015.
Market share fell slightly for the other two network operators, Telstra (down 0.1ppts to 39.1 per cent) and Optus (down 0.5ppts to 24.4 per cent).
Between them, Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) lost market share over the period, (down 0.3ppts to 17.1 per cent combined), including declines for Virgin (down 0.1ppt to 4.4 per cent), TPG/iiNet (down 0.3ppts to 3.0 per cent), and Amaysim (down 0.1ppt to 3.0 per cent).
Bucking the MVNO trend were Boost (up 0.3ppts to 1.4 per cent) and ALDImobile (up 0.2ppts to 1.1 per cent) – both of which are on the Telstra network and only offer pre-paid plans. The combined share of other smaller MVNOs declined 0.3ppts to 4.2 per cent.
Vodafone increased its share of both pre-paid and post-paid consumer mobile services in operation. Among billed mobile services, Vodafone’s share rose 0.8 ppts to 21.3 per cent; among pre-paid services, it gained 1.3ppts to 16.1 per cent.
Telstra’s small decline overall came from mixed results in the post- and pre-paid markets. In the latest six months, Telstra was the provider for 42.0 per cent of billed services (down 0.2ppts) and 33.8 per cent of pre-paid services (up 0.2ppts).
Optus’ share held steady in the post-paid market, with all its total loss coming from a decline of 1.8ppts to 24.6 per cent in the pre-paid market.
