Unless something happens to reverse the trend, there is mounting evidence that telecommunications is a business in decline in Europe. The most recent evidence is revenue weakness at Eircom (News - Alert).

Eircom revenue for the full year ending June 30, 2013, declined to €1,394 million, down €121 million or 8 percent from the previous year.

Operating costs were €612m for the year, down €37m from the prior year, a 6 percent improvement.

Despite these savings, EBITDA decreased by €55 million on the prior year to €487 million for the year, down 10 percent from the previous year.  

The retail customer base, comprising fixed and mobile customers, stood at 1,976,000 on June 30, 2013, and includes 1,059,000 mobile customers. The total customer base, including wholesale customers, is 2,390,000 at June 30, 2013.

In Eircom’s fixed line segment, revenues fell 9 percent for the year to €1,093 million, which was reflected in a corresponding 12 percent decline in fixed line EBITDA to €470 million compared to the previous year.

In the broadband market, eircom had 451,000 retail broadband customers, a one-percent decrease on its retail broadband customer base since  June 30, 2012.

The PSTN customer base fell to 917,000, a reduction of 23,000 customers during the year. Broadband lines in our wholesale business grew 18,000 during the year to a total of 218,000 lines to June 30, 2013.

In the mobile segment, the Group’s customer numbers fell by 2 percent in the quarter to 1,059,000 through the end of June 2013.

However, there were 83,000 net additions in the higher value postpaid segment during the year through June 2013, reflecting a year on year increase of 67,000 post-pay customers.

Mobile revenues continued to decline by five percent for the year but mobile EBITDA grew to €17 million, almost double the previous year.

The longer-term issue is what happens if the former monopoly carriers in each market prove non-viable. The near term issue is simply what can be done to arrest the rate of decline.