Swisscom has reported that "substitution by IP-based applications and the growing use of social media platforms" led to a 28% fall in revenue from directly billed SMS messages during the first quarter of 2012.
Over the same period, the average price per megabyte that Swisscom realised from customers fell by 25%. That combination led to a fall in average revenue per mobile user per month of 4.3% to CHF44.
In the first quarter of 2012 Swisscom sold 328,000 mobile devices (up 1.9% from Q1 2011), of which 67% were smartphones, while the number of mobile access lines grew year-on-year by 221,000 or 3.8% to 6.1 million.
Overall, Swisscom's group net revenue dropped by 2.1% to CHF 2,082 million in the first quarter of 20011, with operating income falling by 2.0% to CHF 1,104 million.
The operator said that capital expenditure in infrastructure had increased by 24.1% to CHF 366 million as it invests heavily in broadband network expansion throughout the country. The operator spent a further CHF 360 million on mobile frequencies.
Its 2012 total capex, excluding that CHF 360 expenditure on mobile frequencies, will reach CHF 2.2 billion, the operator said.