Smaller Australian broadband providers increased their market share in the National Broadbandn Network (NBN) wholesale market in the opening three months of 2022, doing so at the expense of the nation’s larger operators, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has reported.
In publishing its latest ‘NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report’, the ACCC revealed that in the first quarter of this year Telstra, TPG Telecom and Optus all saw their wholesale market shares decline slightly – to 43.7%, 23.3% and 13.9%, respectively. Vocus, the fourth largest operator in terms of wholesale NBN subscriptions was reported to have remained steady at 7.3%, meanwhile. By comparison, the regulator noted that the combined market share of all other retail service providers increased by almost one percentage point, to 11.8%, with growth led by Aussie Broadband, which increased its market share to 6.1% (up 0.5 percentage points).
Commenting on the market development, ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said: ‘The smaller internet providers are growing, and in doing so they are increasing competition in the residential broadband market … The presence of smaller players with competitive offers is keeping the larger providers on their toes.’
Meanwhile, in terms of other key findings from the report, it was revealed that as of 31 March 2022 there were almost 8.7 million residential fixed broadband subscriptions being served via the NBN, of which close to three-quarters were on a plan offering downlink speeds of at least 50Mbps. Notably, however, the number of what the ACCC refers to as ‘very high speed services’ (i.e. those connecting at 100Mbps or faster) dropped by around 140,000 – or 40% – in the quarter, with this attributed to the end of promotional discounts which had been implemented as part of NBN Co’s ‘Focus on Fast’ campaign, which was launched in October 2020.