Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/22/2013 -- Opportunities in the Finnish telecoms market are in the areas of new service development, with content and data key to the market's continued developments. Telecoms operators are seeing subscription growth rates slow down so must build revenues from existing subscribers rather than seek new ones. In the fixed services arena, pay-TV continues to support the broadband sector which already has high usage and limited growth. The threat of over-the-top services from third parties remains a key challenge to operator strategies and the ability to continue generating income from their networks. Despite these challenges, Finnish consumers have high spending ability and operators perform well in relation to other Western European markets.

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Key Data

- Growth in mobile subscriptions in H113 was considerably lower than the rates seen in previous years. We believe the sector is rapidly approaching saturation and has little chance of generating further growth. Operators indicate that around 80% of new handset activations in Q113 were for smartphones and we expect this trend to continue throughout the year. This ties in with regulator FICORA's observations that there were 5.755 wireless data subscribers at the end of 2012.
- FICORA also notes that there were 256,000 IPTV subscribers in Finland at the end of 2012, a y-o-y increase of around 10%. Despite the fact that consumers are increasingly favouring internet-based services for TV viewing, regional operator DNA remains focused on traditional pay-TV platforms. In Q213, it acquired Plus TV, a satellite TV business, which it hopes will make it the largest provider of pay-TV services in the country. DNA has since revealed that it is putting itself up for sale, with a number of high-profile private equity groups participating in the sale process.

Key Trends & Developments

The proposed sell-off of DNA to private investors was finally cancelled in July 2013, but the company's shareholders said they were open to the idea of a sale if market conditions improve. This creates a level of uncertainty about the operator's future, which could play out in weaker quarterly performance from the operator, although Q213 data show a sharp improvement in ARPU. DNA also received regulatory approval for its acquisition of pay-TV provider PlusTV, which will offer it the opportunity to generate greater income from converged services.

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