2016 success: Pure Telecom boosts customer base by 25%

Here at Pure Telecom, we are celebrating after another successful year. Our figures from 2016 show that we now have some 42,500 residential customers in Ireland - up 10,000 from the previous year. And, as the demand for landlines and broadband in Ireland increases, we expect to have reached 100,000 customers by the end of 2019.

Our growth will be achieved through the acquisition of other telecommunications companies, competitive wins, and overall market growth, with the landline becoming the preferred mode of internet communications again.

Paul Connell, director, and co-founder of Pure Telecom, said: Pure Telecom has become a firm leader in the telecoms and broadband market in Ireland and as a result, last year was our most successful to date. The Irish telecoms industry is rapidly evolving and we have always made sure that we were at the forefront of that change; allowing us to capitalize on the digital age, rather than lose out. 2017 is going to be another exciting year for the industry and we look forward to celebrating many more successes along the way.

As a result of our 2016 success and growing position in the telecoms industry, below, Paul Connell outlines the company's ambitious plans for the future and offers his predictions for 2017.

Expanding the company and acquisition

Our target is to more than double our customer base by year-end 2019. This will be achieved by continuing to have the best competitive offering on the market, while also looking at the selective acquisition of smaller broadband and telecommunications companies, which would allow us the scale to continue to offer the most competitive packages on the market.

As we move towards the rollout of the National Broadband Plan and as margins continue to tighten in the industry, we expect to see more consolidation. The larger players will look to sweep up smaller broadband and telecoms companies in order to capitalize on increased demand as more premises become connected to fibre. It is going to be all about national scale and reach. 

Consumers to abandon TV licenses and paid TV

It is a good time for the fixed-line telecommunications industry. Ireland's telecoms and the broadband market is continuing to grow, with many people starting to benefit from wider availability of high-speed broadband in rural Ireland. That has led to the emergence of the international cord-cutter trend, which sees consumers cutting their cable TV connection in favour of high-speed fixed-line broadband to watch Netflix and other streaming media services. I expect the arrival of Amazon Prime in Ireland will intensify that trend. As a result, we will see pressure coming on the TV license as people ditch their traditional TV sets.

Landline is the comeback kid thanks to broadband

In recent months, 25% of our sales have been new line installations. What we're seeing is that people are getting landlines to enable high-speed broadband. And, smartphones are actually contributing to this. When people get home, they don’t want to be using their 3G or 4G to surf the internet they want a WiFi connection from a high-quality fixed-line link. We expect this trend to continue into 2017, with the landline making its comeback.”

2016 round-up

Our growth is a clear result of our investment in customer service, delivering lower prices than our competition, as well as faster internet speeds such as our own 1,000Mbps Lightning Fibre. We won many new customers and lost very few.