Christmas 2020: holiday data traffic and average voice call length up by nearly 30%

12/28/20

25 December was the most active day for Telenor customers

During this year’s Christmas made extraordinary by the coronavirus pandemic, more people shared their Christmas greetings by phone and met and celebrated together in the online space than in person. This is reflected by the higher growth of Christmas mobile internet traffic, call length and even the number of SMS messages in Telenor’s network this year than in previous years.

Mobile internet traffic was 29% up on average on 24, 25 and 26 December this year. 25 December was the most active day with a peak at 10 a.m. to 12:00 noon which shows that many families held an online meeting before having their Christmas meals.

The number of voice calls was roughly the same as at Christmas in previous years, while average call length increased by 30% on average. The highest growth was observed on 25 December between 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. indicating that a large number of Telenor customers shared Christmas greetings with their loved ones at the end of the day.

Based on the SMS traffic measured during the holidays, this communication channel was also very popular during Christmas 2020. The largest number of messages was sent by Telenor customers on 26 December, with 11% more messages sent on 24 to 26 December on average than on the same three days a year before.