Telecoms: Italy

A survey by the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano showed that the value of e-commerce transactions in Italy grew 42%, reaching a value of 2.8 billion €. Roberto Liscia, president of Netcomm, the company that oversaw the survey, said that in 2006 the Italian e-commerce market is expected to grow a further 45%, topping a value of 4 billion €.

EBay.it grew by 150% in 2005, said country manager Alessandro Coppo at an e-commerce conference organized by Politecnico di Milano. Value of traded goods reached 466 million € for the Italian subsidiary, the fastest growing one in the eBay world.

As of June 2006, Vodafone Italia has 24.146.000 customers, 2% more than it had at end of 2005.
UMTS users grew 43% to 3.196.000.

As of end of April 2006, more than 8 million mobile numbers have been ported in Italy.

According to the yearly report released by the National Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), the Italian telecom market grew 4.3% in 2005 topping € 36.1 billion.

According to the latest figure released by GFK, mobile handset sales in Italy are still dominated by mobile network operators, that from July 2005 to June 2006 delivered 58% of the handsets sold in Italy together with some of their specific tariff options or offers. One year earlier the figure was 56%.

According to the report published by Assinform, the Italian telecommunications market (services + terminals + equipment) grew in the first six months of 2006 to € 21,950 million (+0,6% over 1H 2005).

An official report published by the National Statistic Institute analyzing the Italian telecom market in 2005 showed that 56% of mobile traffic is on-net, compared to 22% off-net and 17% to fixed lines.

According to a recent research by ANIE, Italian households do embrace more and more technology, but they are really still in love only with their mobile phones.