More than one-third of Irish internet users are now opting for broadband, according to the Communications Regulator (ComReg).

The latest report on the Irish communications market issued by ComReg shows that the number of broadband subscribers at the end of March was 322,000. This represents 35 per cent of total internet subscriptions, up from 19 per cent a year earlier.

Eircom held 54 per cent of all broadband subscriptions for the period compared to 63 per cent in the same period in 2005. DSL lines were the most common type of broadband platform, accounting for almost three-quarters of all subscriptions.

The Irish electronic communications market - which covers fixed line, mobile and broadcasting - generated revenues of €1.12 billion for the first quarter of 2006, or approximately €4.5 billion when annualised. ComReg estimates that this represents 1.5 per cent of the overall European electronic communications market.

The report also revealed that the mobile penetration rate in Ireland reached 103 per cent (based on the number of active SIM cards) by the end of March 2006, up from 96 per cent in the same period last year.

However the penetration rate remains below the EU average of 105 per cent. In terms of market share, O2 and Vodafone lay claim to roughly 85 per cent of all mobile subscriptions, while Meteor's market share has reached 14.6 per cent.

Irish mobile subscribers are spending more time than ever on their mobiles, talking for a total of 1.5 billion minutes in the first quarter of 2006. This represents a 17 per cent year-on-year increase.

Text messaging has also increased in popularity, with a new high of 1.27 billion messages sent in the quarter, or 99 text messages per subscription per month. Although the number of MMS (multimedia messaging service) messages sent during the quarter increased by 15 per cent to almost 7.9 million, this still remains relatively low compared to voice and text messaging.

Since the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) in the Irish market in June 2003, 543,000 mobile subscribers have switched providers while retaining their original number.

In the broadcasting sector, there has been a steady migration among the almost one million pay-TV subscribers from analogue to digital, with two-thirds of all pay-TV services being delivered via digital during the first quarter of this year.