In the second half of 2017, monthly data transfer volumes averaged out to 10 gigabytes for mobile subscriptions and almost 37 gigabytes for mobile broadband subscriptions, according to Finnish communications regulator Ficora.
This brings the average consumption of mobile data in the mobile network to almost 26 gigabytes per Finn. As expected, there was a significant difference between mobile broadband subscriptions and mobile subscriptions.
The total number of subscriptions remained almost unchanged at 9.5 million in 2017. At the end of the year, two-thirds of these were mobile subscriptions(voice&data) and one fifth were so-called mobile broadband subscriptions(data-only). Only about 10% of subscriptions were voice-only, meaning that they do not include a data transmission service.
While voice&data subscribers transferred around 10 GB of data per month, data-only subscribers consumed almost 37 GB. As there are a lot more mobile subscriptions, the data transfer load in the mobile network was divided almost equally between the two types.
At the end of 2017, almost 111,000 of all mobile subscriptions sold had a data transfer speed of 300 Mbps or higher. Volumes grew in both the max 10 Mbps and the 100 Mbps or higher category, while sales declined in the medium categories.In the second half of 2017, data transfer saw growth of over 40% compared to H2-2016. Growth continued to be strong, but the relative growth rate is slowing down.
Mobile call and text message volumes have been declining for several years now, and this trend continued also in the second half of 2017. The number of call minutes decreased by one per cent and the number of text messages by 13 per cent. In the second half of 2017, Finns talked on their mobile phones for almost 224 minutes and sent 33 text messages per month.
