EU telecoms market at € 300 billion as fixed lines fall

The European Commission (EC) has just published its annual report on the state of Europe's telecoms market. It shows that over the course of last year investment into the EU's telecoms sector was more than € 50 billion and it showed extensive growth for the fifth year in succession.

Unsurprisingly, given the super-saturated state of the market, the mobile sector is the biggest and most lucrative. Last year it was worth € 137 billion last year, a growth rate of 3.8 per cent over the figures for 2006.

At the end of December last, mobile penetration overall was 112 per cent, up from the 103 per cent it stood at at the end of 2006. Meanwhile, 3G is at last gaining some appreciable traction.