Amidst the COVID-19 crisis in New Zealand (NZ), social-distancing and quarantine measures are becoming the norm. New Zealand is currently at alert level 4, which means that non-essential businesses have been directed to close. A large number of organisations have directed their employees to Work From Home (WFH) where possible. Educational institutes are moving to online learning, increasing the load on residential broadband networks. In this report we look at how NZ telcos are stepping up to this challenge and the short-term and long-term implications of COVID-19 on NZ telcos.

Contents

Key takeaways

Introduction

Telcos taking initiatives to address new ground situation

Traffic increases on home broadband and mobile networks

Consumers looking for cheaper mobile services

COVID-19 to impact telco revenues

Takeaways

List of charts/tables

Figure 1. Data traffic (Tbps) on Chorus network during lockdown

Figure 2. Percentage of survey respondents rating a factor between 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 (not important) – 5 (very important), when deciding their next mobile service purchase

Figure 3. What is the main reason you are thinking about changing your mobile service provider?

Figure 4. Which mobile phone provider are you thinking about moving to?

Figure 5. Consumer willingness to move to 5G mobile in February 2020 as compared to September 2018

Figure 6. Impact of COVID-19 on major telco revenue lines in short-term

Figure 7. Comparison of pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 forecasts for telco retail revenues