The Luxembourg Institute of Regulation (ILR) presented its statistical report on Luxembourg's telecommunications sector for 2025 on Monday. Its first finding is that telecom operators' revenues are no longer increasing as quickly as in recent years.
Last year, telecom operators' revenues rose by just 1%, reaching around €634 million. According to the regulator, this is due to the decline in fixed-line telephony and traditional television subscriptions, while growth in internet services is no longer enough to offset everything.
Habits are changing, explained ILR director Luc Tapella. He said landlines at home are being used less and less, with fewer people making calls from home, a trend reflected in the volume of minutes used.
Television is also on a downward trend, with subscriptions falling and people watching less traditional TV, according to Tapella. Today, content is available through other media, particularly social networks, where people increasingly consume it, he said.
Even on mobile phones, people are speaking less and making fewer calls in the traditional sense, Tapella added. When people contact each other, he noted, they increasingly use different apps and need data rather than call minutes.
In Luxembourg, phone subscriptions generally include unlimited calls, but the broader trend, he said, is for more and more activity to take place via the internet.
Last year was the first in which Luxembourg operators passed the milestone of one million SIM cards in circulation. Customers are increasingly opting for subscriptions with large data volumes. Nearly 20% of SIM cards generate revenues of more than €50 per month.
Coverage is extensive for both fixed and mobile internet, said Elisabeth Weber from the ILR's Statistics and Market Monitoring Department. She explained that around 80% of the population now has access to a 5G network with download speeds exceeding one gigabit per second.
This speed is also available at home via fixed cable broadband for 96% of the population, according to Weber. She said this primarily helps private households, particularly for teleworking and other uses requiring strong connectivity.
However, she noted that it also benefits industry as a whole, as well as SMEs and other companies, which can rely on good connectivity in Luxembourg. This, she added, makes the country attractive for new businesses looking to establish themselves.
Operators have invested accordingly: last year, they once again devoted 20% of their revenues to these investments.
