Luxembourg Telecom - Market Share Analysis, Industry Trends & Statistics, Growth Forecasts (2024 - 2029)

Key Highlights

• Luxembourg has a small telecom market dominated by state-owned POST Luxembourg. Government reforms over the last two decades dramatically changed the nature of telecom in Luxembourg. However, players such as Orange and Tango operate their own networks and offer various ranges of competitive deals. Smaller mobile operators in Luxembourg use one of these three networks.
• As per Lexology, by 2024, the main operator, POST Luxembourg, had aimed to have its standard fixed lines totally replaced by fixed lines provided via IP. According to the DESI (Digital Economy & Society Index), next-generation access (NGA) coverage was to reach 99% (compared to an EU average of only 90% of households) by the same year.
• The push to extend essential telephone services nationwide has seen extensive use of Wireless Local Loop (WLL) services. WLL is the use of wireless communications connections to deliver plain old telephone service or internet access to telecommunication customers, such as GSM.
• There is currently no public authority in Luxembourg that exercises global supervisory or monitoring power over the content and traffic data of network operators, ISPs, and users, as this would violate essential privacy principles and, thus, restrain the market.
• Post-pandemic, Luxembourg's government planned to extend the footprint of its 1Gb/s service in line with government programs to make Luxembourg the first fully-fired country in Europe. By early 2021, about 72% of premises were expected to access such a service. Since the end of 2021, Luxembourg has been providing a very high-capacity network (VHCN) with downstream speeds ranging up to 1GB/s to almost 96% of all households and businesses.

Luxembourg Telecom Market Trends

Wireless Service is Expected to Register Significant Market Growth

• 5G fixed wireless access is scalable and affordable, ideal for mid-sized and global businesses. Luxembourg is among the EU leaders in digital infrastructure/connectivity. It scores considerably above the EU average and almost reaches full availability for very high-capacity network (VHCN) coverage. By mid-2022, 5G coverage figures stood at 51% in the 3.4 to 3.8 GHz band and 93% for overall 5G coverage, well above the EU average (source: Digital Economy & Society Index).
• In Luxembourg, all major national operators, including Orange, Tango, and POST, have launched 5G services. The country first awarded the 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz bands in 2020, raising a total of EUR 41 million. With Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson, Luxembourg has facilitated cross-border 5G trials on the German border.
• POST Luxembourg has significantly expanded its network coverage in Luxembourg, with 5G now reaching approximately 94.8% of the population. The company aims to guarantee around 90% coverage through fiber optics by 2025, while 99% coverage was achieved with its 4G+ network.
• Further, the Luxembourg government (Department of Media, Telecommunications and Digital Policy) launched two calls for projects, which attracted submissions from industries including healthcare, drones, and smart cities. The '5GCroCo project' (Fifth Generation Cross-Border Control) is a consortium of telecom companies, vehicle manufacturers, and equipment suppliers working on research and innovation for smart and autonomous transport in cross-border situations. With the growing government focus on digitization and 5G deployment, the market is expected to grow during the forecast period.

OTT to Record Significant Market Growth

• The development of communication infrastructure, with the target of gigabit broadband access throughout the country, is one of the priorities in Luxembourg's governmental program.
• Broadband coverage already reached almost 100%, and Luxembourg is among the European countries with a higher penetration in terms of coverage. Luxembourg’s ultra-high-speed broadband strategy for 2021-2025 has been aimed at high-performance connectivity for all. Its goal has been to ensure that every housing unit has access to at least one VHCN (Very High Capacity Network) network, which is defined as 1 Gbps download and 200 Mbps upload in a fixed network. The strategy prioritizes households in remote areas not connected by a VHCN network.
• The increasing internet penetration in households accounts for a major demand for broadband, which leads to major OTT demand as well. There are around ten OTT video startups in Luxembourg, which include Videoland, Direct One, TELESAT, Docler, and Traacking. In Luxembourg, the video streaming brands with the highest market shares are Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Netflix.
• Players are launching more streaming platforms in the country, leading to significant market growth. For instance, TF1 Group’s free streaming platform TF1+ launched in Belgium and Luxembourg on June 18, 2024. The TF1+ app will be available on four screens: mobile, tablet, PC, and the entire smart TV universe. This international expansion illustrates the company's ambition to position TF1+ as the go-to streaming platform in the French-speaking world and to reunite a cultural community around the French language.
• In terms of expansions, in June 2024, the streaming portal for libraries 'filmfriend' announced that it was expanding its presence in Luxembourg. An additional five Luxembourg libraries have chosen to offer their users filmfriend's free and unlimited video on demand (VOD) service.

Luxembourg Telecom Industry Overview

• October 2023 - Alteox and Rakuten TV, one of the leading streaming platforms in Europe, announced the launch of Rakuten TV’s Video On Demand catalog of international films on Alteox´s streaming platform, Alteox.stream. POST Telecom from Luxembourg will benefit from this distribution deal by making the content package available to PostTV subscribers via their Set-Top Box and on the web via tv.post.lu.
• September 2023 - LIST conducted the 5G-PLANET project, creating concrete, tangible demonstrators that showed the R&D challenges one faces and proved the value of using these advanced communication technologies. The 5G-PLANET project also made it possible to raise public awareness using the digital twin concept by recreating a digital copy of a part of Luxembourg’s 5G infrastructure. This copy was then used to demonstrate the potential of 5G in the country.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support