ACM Telecom Monitor for Q2 2025: Significant increase in mobile-data consumption

In the second quarter of 2025, all Dutch consumers combined consumed a staggering 719 million gigabytes of mobile data, which is an increase of over 16 percent compared with the first quarter of this year. This is one of the conclusions of the most recent Telecom Monitor of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which was published on 7 October.

The last time a similarly substantial increase in mobile-data consumption occurred was in the second quarter of 2023. Back then, the increase was over 20 percent. The long-term trend shows that, over the past several years, mobile-data consumption has doubled approximately every three years.

Although the number of voice calls and text messages have gone down over the past few quarters, these numbers did go up slightly in the past quarter. Telecom operators KPN and Odido continue to be market leaders on the mobile market. However, the market share of so-called Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) did grow, from 4.93 million to 5.38 million sim cards. MVNOs are mobile telecom providers that offer mobile services under their own brand name, but do not have their own network infrastructure. In the first quarter, their share was 15-20 percent. At the moment, that market share is 20-25 percent.

Other trends

The Telecom Monitor also reveals that 8.6 fiber-optic connections have been realized by now, and that plans have been taken out at 3.36 million addresses. This means that the number of subscribers went up 2.8 percent compared with the last quarter. The majority of those households (72.8 percent) have subscriptions with download speeds between 100 and 1,000 Mbps. A small share (11.6 percent) is in the lower-speed segment (less than 100 Mbps). The percentage of households that have subscriptions with very high download speeds (more than 1 Gbps) went up slightly to 15.1 percent. The number of households with copper connections continues to go down, and, by now, sits at 1.55 million active subscriptions. KPN and VodafoneZiggo continue to dominate the broadband market, with both having a market share of 35-40 percent.

About the monitor

Each quarter, ACM publishes the Telecom Monitor. It gives an overview of the trends and developments in the telecom sector. The largest market participants in the telecom industry regularly submit data about their activities to ACM for the Telecom Monitor. ACM checks this information and, in that way, keeps a close watch on the trends and developments on the different markets. This data serves as a key foundation for ACM's analyses. The trends are presented in an interactive dashboard, which everybody can access.