Internet Access:

the war between the fixed and mobile operators

Orange reached an average visit share of 39% in France in October 2013,

20.7% for SFR and 19.4% for Free

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Study published on the 3rd December 2013

Web Trends

Internet Access:

the war between the fixed and mobile operators

12/2/2013 2Confidential - Do not disclose

Study carried out from the 1st to the 31st October 2013 within a cross-section of 7,288 websites, 272 mobile

websites and 516 applications audited by AT Internet.

The arrival of Free on the French mobile market in January 2012 shook up the Internet

service provider market. The market currently thrives on operators‘ advertising for fast &

super-fast broadband deals and 4G. In terms of visit share, Orange clearly dominates the

market, especially as far as the fixed market is concerned, followed by its two main

challengers Free and SFR, and Bouygues on the mobile market.

12/2/2013 3Confidential - Do not disclose

The following graph shows an estimate of the average traffic distribution recorded by websites in October 2013 by the

different Internet Service Providers (not including applications and mobile sites).

o In October 2013, 39% of website traffic coming from France was made via Orange.

o In second and third positions, SFR and Free had almost similar visit shares with

20.7% and 19.4% of traffic respectively.

• Although Free is ahead of SFR in terms of number of subscribers, there is more traffic

coming from SFR

o Bouygues Telecom is in 4th position with a 6.6% visit share.

o Numericable rounds off the ISP top 5 with a 3.9% visit share.

Fixed Internet: Orange, the leading ISP in France with

almost 4 out of 10 visits from a website

12/2/2013 4Confidential - Do not disclose

Fixed Internet: Orange, the leading ISP in France with

almost 4 out of 10 visits from a website

12/2/2013 5Confidential - Do not disclose

Fixed Internet: a focus on Internet user behaviour on different Internet Service Providers

Orange is used a little more on weekdays although SFR and Free, in particular, are

more popular at the weekend

o Orange’s market share is higher on weekdays

• In October 2013, Orange‘s average visit share was 39.3% on weekdays vs. 38.3% at the weekend,

in other words a 1 point gap.

o Although SFR and Free are proportionally used more at the weekend (Free in particular)

• SFR’s visit share is 1.8 points higher at the weekend than on weekdays, and Free’s visit share

increases by 3.7 points at the weekend.

• The more personal use of Free compared with a more significant professional use of SFR could

explain why there is more traffic from SFR despite a lower number of subscribers.

o Bouygues Telecom and Numericable are also used more at the weekend.

12/2/2013 6Confidential - Do not disclose

Fixed Internet: a focus on Internet user behaviour on different Internet Service Providers

12/2/2013 7Confidential - Do not disclose

The following graph shows an estimate of the average traffic distribution recorded by mobile websites and applications in

October 2013 by the different Internet Service Providers. We considered mobile network operators (traffic coming from a

mobile virtual network operator or MVNO is included as part of the owner-operator network data).

o SFR’s and Bouygues’s visit shares, in particular, are higher on the mobile market

• SFR: 20.7% of traffic for websites vs. 24.1% of traffic for mobile sites (+3.4 points) and 23.9%

for applications (+3.2 points).

• Bouygues: 6.6% for websites vs. 18.4% for mobile sites (+11.8 points) and 16.5% for

applications (+9.9 points).

o Whilst the leader Orange doesn’t perform as well on the mobile market as it does on fixed Internet

• 39% of website traffic came via Orange vs. 30.8% of mobile site traffic and 32.5% of

application traffic.

o Visit shares for Free were the same for both mobile and fixed Internet

• Mobile users of Free mobile are heavy consumers: with a number of subscribers lower than

SFR and Bouygues, Free is ahead of Bouygues in terms of traffic and is not too far behind SFR

considering that it has 3 times less mobile customers.

Mobile Internet:

the strengths of SFR, Bouygues and Free

12/2/2013 8Confidential - Do not disclose

Mobile Internet:

the strengths of SFR, Bouygues and Free

12/2/2013 9Confidential - Do not disclose

With 39% of traffic in October 2013, Orange is largely ahead of its two closest challengers with a visit

share that is greater than that of both SFR and Free combined (20.7% and 19.4% respectively). Bouygues

(6.4%) and Numericable (3.7%) rounded off the ISP top 5. On the mobile market (mobile websites and

applications), Orange is the leading operator but the gap with its challengers is less important than on

the fixed internet market.

With the arrival of superfast broadband, the market is communicating lots with the general public. With

heavy advertising campaigns, the different operators are on the hunt for new subscribers, which

sometimes leads to warnings from the ARCEP, the French telelcommunications regulation authority as

what they promise does not always meet reality: this was the case for Free whose new optic fibre offer,

presented as being the fastest in Europe (1 gigabyte), had been judged as “being likely to mislead users”.

Another controversy, this time on the mobile market, has seen the French consumer group “UFC Que

Choisir” accuse operators of decreasing the quality of their 3G mobile network to force their customers

to upgrade to 4G. Controversies as big as the stakes at hand…

Internet Access:

the war between fixed and mobile operators

Methodology

12/2/2013 10Confidential - Do not disclose

o We are interested in the average distribution of visits, by Internet Service Provider, which have been

recorded by a certain cross-section of websites, mobile websites and applications.

o In order to establish the cross-section to be used as part of a study, a website or an application are only

used if the selection criteria, which have been established previously, are respected. These criteria are

very strict and their aim is to remove any websites/applications which have an anecdotal audience, a

chaotic audience, or whose collected data underlines a dysfunction in the measurement.

o Only websites/applications whose traffic has been mainly generated within France are considered. In

addition to this, only visits to these websites/applications which have been generated within France are

considered. We calculate average traffic distribution per website/application. For each

website/application, the visit share for each Internet Service Provider corresponds to the total number of

visits of the analysed Internet Service Provider compared to the overall number of visits for all Internet

Service Provider combined over a given period.

Surveys Department

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