Mobile Internet access traffic increased by 34.4%

At the end of the 2^nd quarter of 2025, mobile penetration was 169.9 per 100 inhabitants. If only mobile accesses with actual use¹ are considered (excluding M2M²), the penetration rate in Portugal would be 125.7. In addition, if accesses used exclusively for data services and Internet access (cards associated with PC/tablet/pen/router) are also excluded, the penetration rate would be 119.4 per 100 inhabitants.

Mobile accesses sold together with fixed services (i.e. in convergent bundles) had a penetration rate of 62.0 per 100 inhabitants³.

The number of mobile accesses authorised for the use of mobile services was 18.3 million. Of these, 13.5 million (74.0% of the total) were actually used. Excluding the number of PC/tablet/pen/router accesses, the number of mobile accesses was 12.8 million.

The number of subscribers actually using the service decreased by 105 thousand (-0.8%), compared with the end of 2Q2024. This decrease is explained by the reduction of post-paid plans, which decreased by 17.8% year-on-year and accounted for 23.3% of the total number of accesses actually used. The number of subscriptions to postpaid and hybrid plans increased by 5.9%.

In terms of mobile service usage, 19.9% of mobile users accessed voice services only, while 75.0% accessed voice and Internet services. Around 5.1% of users accessed the Internet only, using PC/tablet/pen/router access.

At the end of the 2^nd quarter of 2025, 46.6% of mobile accesses used 4G technology, while 17.2% used the 2G+3G network and 36.2% used the 5G network (+14.8 p.p. compared to 2Q2024).

In terms of type of use, 2G+3G accesses were mainly used for voice services (68.6%), while 4G and 5G accesses were mainly used for voice and Internet access services (50.3% and 45.2%, respectively).

At the end of the 2^nd quarter of 2025, mobile accesses by residential users accounted for 80.8% of total active accesses, while accesses by business users accounted for 19.2%.

At the end of 2Q2025, there were approximately 3.8 million ported mobile numbers. During this quarter, 247.8 thousand mobile numbers were ported, an increase by 79.0% compared to the same quarter last year.

Mobile voice traffic in minutes decreased by 3.9% compared to 2Q2024. The number of minutes of traffic per mobile voice access averaged 201 per month, or about 7 minutes per day. Compared to last year, the average monthly traffic decreased by 10 minutes (-4.8%).

The average call duration was 2 minutes 47 seconds per call, 5 seconds less than in the same period last year.

There were 10.8 million actual users of the mobile Internet access services, 0.7% more than in the same period last year. This figure corresponds to a penetration rate of around 100.7 per 100 inhabitants (-0.4 p.p. compared with 2Q2024).

The increase in the number of users is the result of growth in mobile Internet users (+2.1%). The number of users of the PC/tablet/pen/router Internet access service, which accounted for 6.3% of all mobile Internet users, decreased by 16.7% compared to last year.

Mobile Internet access by residential users accounted for 79.8% of the total, while business users accounted for 20.2%.

Mobile broadband (MBB) Internet access traffic increased by 34.4% compared to 2Q2024. This growth is explained by an increase in the number of users and, above all, by an increase in the intensity of use.

Average monthly traffic per active mobile Internet user increased by 33.6% year-on-year. Each MBB user consumed an average of 15.7 GB per month. Average monthly traffic generated by PC/tablet/pen/router reached 33.2 GB (+9.3%).

At the end of 2Q2025 there were around 1.3 million active mobile M2M accesses (9x numbering), an increase by 3.9% compared to the same period last year. These accesses represented 7.0% of total active accesses.

In 2Q2025, voice traffic for both roaming in and roaming out decreased compared to the previous year (-25.3% and -25.9%, respectively). On the other hand, Internet traffic increased (+34.6% for roaming in and +39.0% for roaming out).

In 2Q2025, the degree of coverage of roaming traffic in minutes by roaming out was 103%. For Internet access, roaming in traffic was 2.3 times higher than roaming out traffic.

MEO continues to be the main provider with 36.0% of active mobile accesses with actual usage (excluding M2M), followed by NOS (31.0%) and Vodafone (27.7%). Grupo DIGI/NOWO and Lycamobile follow with shares of 3.1% and 2.1%, respectively. Compared to the same period last year, the shares of NOS and Lycamobile increased by 0.8 p.p. and 0.3 p.p. respectively, while the shares of MEO and Vodafone decreased by 1.7 p.p. and 0.5 p.p. respectively.

MEO's share of mobile Internet subscribers was 34.9%, followed by NOS (33.3%), Vodafone (26.4%), Grupo DIGI / NOWO (3.5%) and Lycamobile (1.9%). Compared to 2Q2024, the share of NOS and Lycamobile increased by 0.8 p.p. and 0.2, respectively, while Vodafone's and MEO's shares decreased by 1.5 p.p. and 0.9 p.p., respectively.

NOS had the highest share of mobile broadband Internet traffic (35.9%), followed by Vodafone (31.6%), MEO (27.9%), Grupo DIGI / NOWO (3.2%) and Lycamobile (1.3%). Compared to last year, the shares of Vodafone, NOS and MEO decreased by 2.4 p.p., 1.0 p.p. and 0.1 p.p., respectively, while Lycamobile's share increased by 1.0 p.p..

At the end of 2Q2025, 36.2% of mobile service users and 42.9% of mobile Internet users were using the 5G mobile network. The number of mobile Internet users using 5G totalled 4.6 million (+58.6% compared with 2Q2024), of which 98.8% had access via mobile phone.

The penetration rate of 5G mobile Internet access reached 43.2 per 100 inhabitants.

In 2Q2025, traffic on 5G networks is estimated to account for around 22.3% of total mobile data traffic, reaching 8.1 GB per month per 5G mobile Internet user.