On 11 December 2014, ComReg published its Quarterly Key Data Report for the third quarter in 2014.

A bit of a mixed picture for this quarter. Highlights include:

• Despite overall industry retail revenues increasing 1.1% from Q2 to Q3 2014, when taken at an annual level there was a continuing decline in overall industry retail revenues (€3.16 billion for the 12 months to September 2014).
  
• Bucking recent trends, mobile ARPU actually increased on a quarterly basis in Q3 2014 to €25.4 per month - up from €24.9 in Q2 2014. Annually however, the figures show a slight decline compared to monthly ARPU of €25.8 for the same period in Q3 2013.  ComReg has stated that despite some evidence of tentative growth in Q3 2014, the decline in ARPU is due in part, to the continuing economic conditions in Ireland, cheaper mobile plans and increased sales of bundled products and reductions in roaming and mobile termination rates.
  
• Total broadband subscriptions stood just under 1.7 million at the end of September 2014, up 1.1% compared to Q3 2013, but down 0.2% compared to Q2 2014.
  
• Fixed voice subscriptions increased only marginally by 0.5% since Q2 2014, but an increase of 4.8% during the previous 12 month period, to just over 1.58 million subscriptions.
  
• Total voice traffic (in minutes) was up only marginally by 0.2% from Q2 2014, and actually decreased by 0.6% from the same period in 2013.  This seems to be more consistent with an overall trend away from voice (particularly fixed voice services) towards data.   The majority of the total voice traffic continues to be attributable to mobile voice traffic (70.9%), with mobile minutes increasing 0.4% from Q2 2014. 
  
• Average fixed broadband speeds continue to increase. The figures show 61.8% of all fixed broadband subscriptions in Q3 2014 ≥10 Mbps, and 43.2% of all fixed broadband subscriptions in Q3 2014 ≥ 30 Mbps (an increase from 42.1%, and 32.5% respectively from Q3 2013).  Once faster fibre based solutions are rolled out under the National Broadband Plan we should see greater speeds becoming more widespread.