NL sees big spike in mobile data use; 200 billion MB in 1st quarter

Netherlands residents used over 200 billion MB of mobile data in the first quarter of this year, an increase of nearly 35 percent compared to last year, the Dutch authority on consumers and markets ACM announced. It is not clear how much working from home due to the coronavirus lockdown, implemented in March, had an influence on this, the ACM said.

In the first three months of this year, Netherlands residents used 214 billion MB of mobile data, 34.5 percent more than the 159 billion MB used in the first quarter of last year. According to ACM, this is the first time that Dutch mobile data use topped 200 billion MB in a quarter. 

T-Mobile processed more than half of all data used in the first quarter, followed by KPN and then VodafoneZiggo. 

The number of mobile calling minutes used also increased sharply, from 7.6 million in the first quarter of 2019 to 8.7 million this year. The number of calls made via traditional telephony decreased from 430 million minutes to almost 340 million minutes. And the number of text messages decreased by 10 percent to 675 thousand in the first quarter of this year.