Communications Monitoring Report 2017
The 2017 Communications Monitoring Report provides a detailed overview of the Canadian communication industry including revenues, subscriber data, audience measurement, household expenditures, technology penetration and emerging trends and issues.
Canada’s Communication System: An Overview for Canadians
We’re continuing to strengthen our efforts to keep Canadians at the centre of the communication system, whether as consumers of communications products and services, or creators and distributors of content.
Take a closer look at how Canadians use communication services, what the competition looks like, and how much households are spending, including data on how Canadians are embracing mobile wireless services.
More Canadian households have mobile phones (86.1%) than landlines (71.9%).
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The Communications Industry
The Communications industry
Overall, the Communications industry, which consists of both the broadcasting and telecommunications market sectors, saw a 1.3% increase in revenues last year.
It is no surprise that wireless services represented more than half (52%) of all retail telecommunications revenues in 2016. In fact, wireless services are the largest sector among all retail telecommunications services, and have grown more than any other since 2008.
Examine this and other key characteristics of the communications industry, including details on revenue growth and financial performance.
Wireless services represent 40% of communication expenditures for Canadian households.
Broadcasting Sector Overview
Whether it’s listening to the radio online, streaming music and videos or watching TV online, the viewing and listening habits of Canadians, especially the younger generations, are transforming the broadcasting industry.
Take an in-depth look at the broadcasting sector in 2016 and see how trends and revenues for radio, TV and television service providers compared to last year. While Canadians still watch traditional TV and listen to the radio, digital platforms are playing an increasingly important role in the broadcasting industry.
- 22% of Canadians listen to radio online
- Canadians listen, on average, to 14.5 hours of radio each week
- Canadians watch, on average, approximately 27 hours of traditional TV each week
58% of Canadians watch online TV.
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Telecommunications Sector
Telecommunications sector
Canadians’ appetite to access mobile apps, multimedia services, social media, and streamed music, video and TV programming on smartphones and tablets is increasing rapidly. Data usage has skyrocketed over the last year and more than three-quarters of all wireless subscribers have a data plan. More specifically, data usage increased by nearly 25% for wireless and over 23% for residential Internet services from 2015 to 2016.
Canadians are shifting the way they use their mobile devices by placing an emphasis on data usage rather than voice services. This shift is increasing mobile device ownership yet again this year, with 77% of Canadians having a smartphone, and 54% a tablet.
In 2016, Canadians downloaded an average of 117GB of data monthly.
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International Data
Take a look at the communications industry on a global scale.
- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Broadband Portal
- OECD Digital Economy Outlook
- International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Statistics (Available in English only)
- World Economic Forum Global Information Technology Report (Available in English only)
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