The regulatory authority for electronic communications and posts (ARCEP) is releasing its traditional bulletin relating to telecommunications traffic overseas for the 3rd quarter of 2024.
The number of SIM cards in service in overseas departments and communities amounts to 2.6 million in the third quarter of 2024. It is increasing for the third consecutive quarter (+ 20,000 cards) after a year of partial decline linked to cancellations of inactive cards on the prepaid market.
This increase comes entirely from the packages segment. The number of prepaid cards overseas, which has been declining for more than two years, will stabilize in the third quarter of 2024.
In the metropolitan market, the number of SIM cards amounts to 81.2 million. The quarterly growth of these cards continues to slow down: +400,000 cards compared to +515,000 cards a year earlier. This slowdown results from the weakening of growth in the post-paid segment which represents 92% of the number of SIM cards in service (excluding MtoM) in mainland France. After two quarters during which growth was driven solely by virtual mobile operators, the number of SIM cards from network operators is increasing again in the metropolitan market.
Growth in the number of packages intended for residential customers weakened for the second consecutive quarter after a quarter of decline. This growth amounts to +245,000 cards in the third quarter of 2024 compared to +355,000 a year earlier.
Despite the decline in the number of net sales observed over the past three quarters due to the increase in the volume of cancellations, the residential postpaid market remains dynamic. Gross sales, increasing since the end of 2023, recorded high growth in the third quarter of 2024 (+ 14% in one year). As a result, the volume of numbers retained after changing operator is increasing significantly, by almost 30% in one year compared to around +10% a year previously.
In the business segment, quarterly growth in the number of SIM cards has been reduced by almost half in one year. It stands at +55,000 cards in the third quarter of 2024 after quarterly growth of between +90,000 and +190,000 cards since 2019. However, the annual growth in the number of SIM cards (+3.4%) in this segment market is significantly higher than that of the residential postpaid market (+ 0.6%).
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