Islanders churned through 43% more data last year

Wednesday 21 July 2021

Home working, Zoom meetings and the lockdown helped drive a 43% increase in data usage in Jersey in 2020.

Meanwhile, the number of fixed call network minutes, which had been in decline for the last six years, rose by 10.8%.

The figures were released in the Telecommunications Statistics and Market Report 2020 compiled by Statistics Jersey on behalf of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority (JCRA) and the Guernsey Competition & Regulatory Authority (GCRA).

The report shows the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the telecoms sector.

The “strong upward trend” in data usage which had already been noticed prior to  2020 continued but increased home working and schooling helped drive a large rise last year.

Subscribers in Jersey each sent and received an average of 298GB per month, compared to 209GB in 2019, demonstrating a significant increase of 42.8%.

Meanwhile, the total number of mobile call minutes and mobile data volumes also increased by 22.5% and 25.6% respectively.

Despite those increases, revenue fell in 2020, driven partly by a 69% decrease in out-roaming revenues caused by the dramatic reduction in the number of people travelling.

Fixed, mobile and Internet access, as well as associated services and the sale of handsets generated a turnover of £104.1m in Jersey.

In a joint statement the GCRA and JCRA said: “2020 was a challenging year for all sectors of the economy, but the Islands’ telecoms operators have demonstrated their resilience and flexibility in managing a very complex situation.

“Businesses and their staff had to adapt to new ways of working very quickly, and robust telecoms networks were essential to the success of that transition.

“This independent report shows that while the sector did not grow overall in terms of revenue, it managed to hold its ground and continue to play an important part in the overall strength of our economies, not just in financial but in human and technological terms.”

CLICK HERE to read the full report on the Telecoms market.