The French market added 373,000 new mobile customers in the first quarter, taking the total base to 55.731 million at the end of March. The postpaid base rose by 546,900 to 36.856 million, while prepaid users dropped by 173,900 to a total of 18.875 million, according to the figures from regulator Arcep, quoted by Telecom Paper.
MVNOs accounted for 69,700 of the susbcriber additions and finished the period with a total 2.671 million customers. SMS traffic were up 47% from a year ago and 17% from the fourth quarter, to a total 6.913 billion messages.
Total mobile revenues for metropolitan France reached €5.46 billion, up 3.2% from a year ago. ARPU was at €35.6 per month, down from €35.8 in Q4, but up from €34.5 a year ago. Traffic improved 7.2% year-on-year to 35.58 billion minutes. Some 305,900 subscribers ported their numbers to another network during the quarter.