New figures show major telcos are losing market share for NBN services to smaller providers. 

The ACCC’s latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report looks at the wholesale market for NBN services, particularly the residential broadband services that retailers buy from NBN to sell to consumers.

In the first three months of this year, wholesale market shares declined slightly for Telstra (down 0.3 percentage points to 43.7 per cent), TPG (down 0.3 percentage points to 23.3 per cent) and Optus (down 0.3 percentage points to 13.9 per cent). Vocus, the fourth-largest telco whose brands include Commander and Dodo, remained steady at 7.3 per cent.

In contrast, the combined market share of all other retail service providers increased by almost one percentage point (84,414 additional services) to 11.8 per cent. 

This growth was led by Aussie Broadband, which increased its market share to 6.1 per cent (up 0.5 percentage points).

“The smaller internet providers are growing, and in doing so they are increasing competition in the residential broadband market,” ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said.

“The presence of smaller players with competitive offers is keeping the larger providers on their toes.”

The report also shows that nearly 8.7 million residential broadband services are now on the NBN, and almost three-quarters of those are high speed plans of at least 50 Mbps or more.

As the ‘Focus on Fast’ promotional discounts have now ended, the number of very high speed services over 100 Mbps fell by around 140,000 services, or by 40 per cent, in the March 2022 quarter. 

However, there are still more than eight times as many very high speed services connected to the NBN than in late-2020 when the promotion began.