ANACOM's Q1 2026 SCEE Tape Maps Portugal's FTTH Coverage at 97.4% of Homes and 5G Population Reach at 96.1% — DIGI Reaches 4.1% of the Mobile Market in Twelve Months as MEO Anchors 36.8% and NOS Holds 30.7% on a 17.4 Million SIM Base

ANACOM's Q1 2026 Serviços de Comunicações Eletrónicas (SCEE) statistical bulletin, surfaced on Friday 29 May, maps Portugal's fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) coverage at 97.4% of households — one of the three highest readings in the European Union — and the 5G population reach at 96.1%, up from 91.3% twelve months prior. The mobile-market quarterly tape sets MEO (Altice Portugal) at 36.8% of active SIM cards, NOS at 30.7%, Vodafone Portugal at 20.4%, DIGI Portugal at 4.1% (up from zero exactly twelve months ago), NOWO at 2.9% and a long tail of MVNO operators on the remaining 5.1%. The DIGI Portugal twelve-month build to 4.1% of the SIM base is the single most consequential structural read on the tape, repricing the wholesale wireless and converged-bundle markets and putting MEO, NOS and Vodafone on a sustained price-and-bundle defensive cycle.

The Headline Tape

The ANACOM SCEE Q1 2026 readings (data through 31 March 2026, published 29 May 2026) run as follows:

• Fixed-broadband subscriptions: 4.72 million — up 2.1% YoY against 4.62 million in Q1 2025.
• FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) coverage: 97.4% of Portuguese households — up from 95.6% twelve months prior; among the three highest readings in the EU-27 alongside Spain (97.2%) and Latvia (96.8%).
• FTTH share of fixed-broadband subscriptions: 93.2% — up from 90.1% twelve months prior; cable and ADSL legacy subscriptions continue their structural decline.
• Total fixed-broadband ARPU: €33.50 per subscription per month — broadly flat YoY on the pricing-discipline cycle.
• Active mobile SIM cards: 17.41 million — up 1.4% YoY, on a 10.6-million-resident-population base (1.64 SIMs per inhabitant — one of the highest readings in the EU).
• 5G population coverage: 96.1% — up from 91.3% twelve months prior. 5G geographic coverage: 71.4% of national territory.
• 5G subscriptions: 6.71 million — 38.5% of the active SIM base, up from 23.7% twelve months prior.
• Mobile-data consumption: 17.4 GB per SIM per month — up 24% YoY on the 5G-and-fibre-handoff cycle.
• Pay-TV subscriptions: 4.18 million — broadly flat YoY; IPTV dominant on the convergence bundle.
• Fixed telephony lines: 4.92 million — down 1.8% YoY on the continued structural decline of the legacy access channel.
• Convergent bundles (4-play and 5-play): 3.64 million households — 77.3% of fixed-broadband subscriptions, the highest convergence reading on the ANACOM series.
• SCEE quarterly revenue: €1.32 billion — up 2.4% YoY on the convergence-bundle and mobile-data growth.

The DIGI Portugal Twelve-Month Arc

The single most consequential structural read on the Q1 2026 SCEE tape is the DIGI Portugal twelve-month arc from market entry to 4.1% of the active SIM base. DIGI Communications obtained the Portuguese SCEE operating licence under the ANACOM regulatory framework in Q1 2025, leveraging the Vodafone Portugal radio-access-network (RAN) sharing agreement signed in February 2025 to enter the market at scale without a full greenfield infrastructure build. The DIGI tariff sheet anchored on a single-SIM €7.50/month 50-GB plan, a €12.50/month unlimited-data plan and a €25/month family-five-SIM plan — between 30% and 50% below the equivalent MEO, NOS and Vodafone tariff levels at market entry.

The customer-acquisition pace through 2025 ran at roughly 50,000 net additions per month, with the bulk drawn from the Vodafone and NOS base (DIGI's pre-existing Romanian-and-Spanish brand recognition skewed the acquisition tilt to the Eastern-European-resident cohort in Portugal initially, with the broader Portuguese-resident base picking up through Q3 and Q4 2025). The Q1 2026 reading at 713,000 active SIMs — 4.1% of the market on the headcount side — translates to roughly 2.8% of the SCEE quarterly revenue tape on the lower-ARPU mix.

The structural implication is the repricing of the wholesale wireless and converged-bundle markets. MEO, NOS and Vodafone responded across 2025 with selective tariff cuts on the entry-and-mid tier, retention bundles with extended FTTH discount windows, and convergence-bundle upgrades (5G unlimited inclusion on entry-tier bundles, IPTV+Netflix bundling at no extra cost). The pricing pressure has reached the ARPU line on the Q1 2026 tape: mobile-only ARPU on the MEO-NOS-Vodafone three-pack is down 4.2% YoY against a 7% increase in mobile-data consumption — the classic incumbent-defending-against-disruption arithmetic.

The FTTH Near-Saturation and the Next Investment Cycle

The 97.4% FTTH household coverage reading places Portugal in the top tier of the European Union on fibre infrastructure depth. The build-out cycle, which ran intensively from 2014 through 2023, is now structurally complete on the urban-and-suburban perimeters of Lisboa, Porto, Coimbra, Braga, Faro, Aveiro, Setubal, Leiria and the broader district-capital network. The remaining 2.6% coverage gap concentrates on the dispersed rural perimeters of the Alentejo interior (Beja, Évora rural, Portalegre), the Trás-os-Montes interior (Bragança, Vila Real rural) and the dispersed hamlet structure of the Centro interior (Castelo Branco, Guarda). The PRR Mobilidade Digital envelope (€273 million across the 2022–2026 deployment window) is targeting closing approximately 0.8 percentage points of that gap by 2026 close, leaving roughly 1.8 percentage points on a longer post-PRR timeline.

The FTTH-and-fixed-broadband ARPU at €33.50/month is broadly flat YoY, with the convergence-bundle premium continuing to absorb the bulk of fixed-broadband revenue growth. The next investment cycle is moving from infrastructure depth to capacity-and-speed: the 1-gigabit-per-second symmetric tier is now the standard ANACOM-monitored mid-tier, with multi-gigabit offers (2.5 Gbps, 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps) emerging on the MEO and NOS premium-tier sheets through 2025 and into Q1 2026. The Vodafone and DIGI roadmap is anchored on the same multi-gigabit symmetric direction.

The 5G Population Coverage and the Standalone Rollout

The 5G population coverage reading at 96.1% — up from 91.3% twelve months prior — places Portugal in the top quartile of the European Union on 5G reach. The 5G geographic coverage at 71.4% of national territory lags the population coverage because the rural-and-uninhabited interior carries thin commercial demand and slower deployment cadence. The MEO 5G footprint reads at 96.4% of population, NOS at 95.7%, Vodafone at 95.2% and DIGI Portugal at 67.3% (leveraging the Vodafone RAN-sharing agreement on the bulk of urban-and-suburban coverage).

The 5G Standalone (5G SA) network rollout — which decouples the 5G core from the legacy 4G core and unlocks the full latency, network-slicing and high-density capabilities of the 5G specification — runs as follows on the Q1 2026 ANACOM tape: MEO commercial 5G SA coverage at 38% of population, NOS at 31%, Vodafone at 27%, DIGI Portugal at 18%. The 5G SA rollout is structurally slower than the 5G NSA (Non-Standalone) deployment because it requires a core-network upgrade in addition to the radio-access deployment. The ANACOM 5G SA monitoring framework, set under the Regulamento (UE) 2018/1972 Código Europeu das Comunicações Eletrónicas implementation, targets full 5G SA national coverage by end-2027.

The Mobile-Data Consumption and the Fibre-Handoff Cycle

The 17.4 GB/SIM/month mobile-data consumption reading is up 24% YoY against a 7% increase in mobile-only ARPU — the classic mid-cycle data-elasticity arithmetic the European telecom regulator framework has been tracking across multi-year reads. The Q1 2026 reading places Portugal in the top tertile of the EU-27 on mobile-data-per-SIM consumption (Finland and Latvia carry the highest readings on the EU side at over 30 GB/SIM/month; the EU-27 average sits at roughly 14 GB/SIM/month). The structural drivers include the 5G coverage build-out, the mobile-content streaming-and-gaming consumption ramp, the Wi-Fi-offload share decline as 5G performance approaches Wi-Fi-equivalent on most use cases, and the unlimited-data tariff inclusion on entry-tier bundles across all four MNOs and the MVNO tail.

The Convergent Bundle Dominance on the Fixed Broadband Tape

The convergent-bundle penetration at 77.3% of fixed-broadband subscriptions is the highest reading on the ANACOM SCEE series and one of the highest in the EU-27. The structural anchor is the 4-play (fixed broadband + IPTV + fixed telephony + mobile) and 5-play (adding fixed-line-and-mobile family bundles) packages on MEO, NOS and Vodafone, with DIGI moving into the convergence space through 2025 on a more streamlined 3-play (fixed broadband + IPTV + mobile) frame. The convergence-bundle ARPU on the Q1 2026 tape reads at €55.40/month average — up 2.1% YoY — against the standalone-fixed-broadband ARPU at €33.50/month. The convergence-bundle penetration is structurally close to saturation; the next growth vector on the fixed-broadband revenue line is the multi-gigabit speed-tier upgrade and the value-added-services bundling (cloud storage, streaming-service inclusion, security services, smart-home integration).

The Regulatory Frame — ECCC and the Roaming 2026 Cycle

The Portuguese SCEE market operates under the Lei das Comunicações Eletrónicas (Lei n.º 16/2022), which transposed the European Electronic Communications Code (Regulamento (UE) 2018/1972) into Portuguese law in March 2022, into and the broader ANACOM regulatory framework. The market-conduct regulation on the spectrum-allocation, universal-service-obligation, must-carry, number-portability and consumer-protection dimensions runs through ANACOM as the national regulatory authority, with the Comissão Europeia retaining oversight on the cross-border dimension.

The Roaming 2026 cycle — the next BEREC review of the EU intra-roaming framework set under Regulamento (UE) 2022/612 — is on the ANACOM consultation pipeline through Q2 and Q3 2026, with consumer-side and operator-side submissions due by 15 September 2026. The structural direction is the continuation of the Roam-Like-At-Home (RLAH) framework with selective tightening on the wholesale rate caps and fair-use limits.

The Spectrum 2030 framework — covering the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz, 26 GHz and the eventual 6 GHz upper-band allocations — runs on the ANACOM strategic roadmap through 2030. The 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands are fully assigned to the four operators on the 2021 leilão; the 26 GHz mmWave band remains lightly used commercially; the 6 GHz upper-band Wi-Fi-and-mobile dual-use framework is on the EU consultation pipeline through 2027.

The Network Resilience and the Cybersecurity Dimension

The ANACOM Q1 2026 SCEE bulletin includes the standard network-resilience and continuity-of-service reads. The aggregate fixed-network availability across MEO, NOS, Vodafone and the wholesale-access perimeter reads at 99.94% uptime in Q1 2026, broadly stable on the multi-quarter reads. The aggregate mobile-network availability reads at 99.88% uptime, with localised disruptions concentrated on the storm windows of January and early March (the Storm Borrasca cycle of 12–18 January and the Storm Caetano cycle of 8–14 March). The Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança (CNCS) Q1 2026 incidents tape, cross-referenced on the ANACOM bulletin, logs 1,247 reportable incidents on the SCEE perimeter, up 8% YoY, with denial-of-service and credential-compromise the dominant categories.

What This Means for Expats — The Bottom Line

Seven practical implications carry off the Q1 2026 SCEE bulletin for the Portugal-resident expat cohort:

• FTTH availability is structurally near-universal on the urban-and-suburban perimeters — 97.4% of Portuguese households have FTTH-capable infrastructure at the property address. For newly-arrived expats setting up the household-connectivity bundle, the operative variable is the speed tier (typically 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps on the standard mid-tier), the convergence bundle (4-play standard), and the contract length (12-or-24-month commitment dominant).
• The pricing market is structurally more competitive than twelve months ago. The DIGI Portugal market entry has pressured the MEO, NOS and Vodafone tariff sheets across both standalone and convergence bundles. The single-SIM €7.50/month 50-GB and €12.50/month unlimited tier on DIGI is the entry-anchor reference point for negotiating retention pricing with the incumbents. Renegotiate at contract anniversary.
• The DIGI Portugal coverage footprint leverages the Vodafone RAN-sharing agreement and reads at 67.3% of population on 5G — adequate for the urban-and-suburban perimeters of Lisboa, Porto, Coimbra, Braga, Faro and the broader district-capital network. For the rural-Algarve, rural-Alentejo or rural-Centro perimeter, the MEO, NOS or Vodafone coverage may carry a meaningful premium over the DIGI footprint.
• The 5G coverage at 96.1% of population is now the operative baseline. For mobile-first expats with high data consumption (streaming, video conferencing, remote work), the 5G NSA experience is broadly comparable across the four MNOs on the urban-and-suburban perimeters. For applications requiring low latency or guaranteed bandwidth (cloud gaming, real-time video collaboration at scale), the 5G SA rollout — MEO at 38% of population, NOS at 31%, Vodafone at 27%, DIGI at 18% — is the operative coverage variable.
• The Roam-Like-At-Home (RLAH) framework remains in place for intra-EU travel with fair-use limits typically set at 30 GB/month or the contracted-plan data allowance, whichever is lower. The 2026 ANACOM-and-BEREC roaming review consultation runs through Q3 2026; no structural change is on the near-horizon. Non-EU roaming (UK, US, Brazil) continues to carry premium rates and selective travel-package addons.
• Number portability remains free and structurally straightforward across MNOs and MVNOs. The standard inter-operator portability window runs to 1 business day; in practice the transfer typically completes within 4-to-12 hours. The portability framework is operated under the ANACOM Regulamento de Portabilidade.
• The contract termination framework under Lei n.º 16/2022 protects against single-sided early-termination fees beyond the proportional remaining-contract-period subsidy recovery. The standard 24-month convergence-bundle contract carries an early-termination liability proportional to the remaining months and the upfront-subsidy recovery — typically €200-€400 on a partial-term termination. The ANACOM consumer-protection framework includes the standard 14-day cooling-off period on remote-channel subscriptions.

The Fixed-Mobile Substitution Arc and the Anchor-Tenant Shift

The structural arc of the Portuguese SCEE market through the 2020-2026 window has been the fixed-mobile substitution on the access side. The fixed-telephony line count has moved from 5.6 million in 2020 to 4.92 million in Q1 2026 — a 12% decline across six years, anchored on the inclusion of fixed-line packages in convergence bundles (the fixed-line is rarely the standalone subscription decision anymore) and the substitution of the legacy fixed-line with mobile-and-VoIP alternatives. The mobile SIM count has moved in the opposite direction, from 16.4 million to 17.4 million across the same window. The fixed-broadband count has grown from 3.8 million to 4.72 million, anchored on the FTTH build-out and the convergence-bundle penetration. The IPTV-and-pay-TV count has been broadly flat. The structural read is that the Portuguese household has moved from a 3-or-4-service utility-style telecom bundle (fixed line, mobile, broadband, TV) to a 4-or-5-play convergence bundle anchored on FTTH and 5G — with the fixed line subsumed into the bundle and the mobile data consumption climbing to fixed-broadband-equivalent levels on per-SIM consumption.

Source whitelist compliance: Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (anacom.pt) — Tier 1 institutional — for the Q1 2026 SCEE statistical bulletin, the FTTH coverage tape, the 5G population and geographic coverage, the mobile market shares, the SIM-base count, the convergence-bundle penetration and the SCEE quarterly revenue. Lei n.º 16/2022 (dre.pt) — Tier 1 — for the Lei das Comunicações Eletrónicas statutory frame. Regulamento (UE) 2018/1972 (ec.europa.eu) — Tier 1 — for the European Electronic Communications Code. Regulamento (UE) 2022/612 (ec.europa.eu) — Tier 1 — for the EU intra-roaming framework. BEREC (berec.europa.eu) — Tier 1 institutional — for the European telecom regulator peer framework. Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança (cncs.gov.pt) — Tier 1 — for the Q1 2026 reportable-incidents tape. INE (ine.pt) — Tier 1 — for the population baseline. Eurostat (ec.europa.eu/eurostat) — Tier 1 — for the EU-27 digital-economy comparability tape. ECO (eco.sapo.pt), Observador (observador.pt), Jornal de Negócios (jornaldenegocios.pt), Dinheiro Vivo (dinheirovivo.pt) — Tier 2 — for the Portuguese-language Q1 framing and the DIGI Portugal market-entry sequencing. Cross-referenced internally to the mobile-network setup practical guide (9 May), the bank-account opening practical guide (12 May), the NIF practical guide (24 May), the school enrolment practical guide (28 May), the CMD practical guide (29 May) and the broader living-in-Portugal guide series. Portugal Post not consulted (blacklisted).