LISBON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The number of Portuguese optingfor bundled phone, Internet and pay-TV services jumped 10.5percent in the third quarter from a year earlier and revenuesincreased even more, led by a strong performance atnewly-created NOS.
With phone-only revenues under pressure in a mature andcash-strapped European market, telecoms companies areincreasingly looking to sell a package of services includingbroadband and pay-TV in order to win customers.
In Britain, BT Group is in talks with mobile networkproviders EE and O2 about potentially adding a further serviceto its offering.
In Portugal, data from telecoms agency Anacom showed 2.8million subscribers used bundled services in the third quarter,including the highest number of new clients in 2-1/2 years.
Anacom said 71 out of 100 households had bundled services,up from around 64 a year earlier. Portugal's economy started torecover from a long recession last year and is expected toreturn to modest growth this year.
Revenues in the bundled segment rose 11.4 percent in thequarter to 847 million euros ($1.1 billion), led by NOS -- theproduct of a recent merger between local companies ZON andSonaecom's unit Optimus.
While traditional market leader Portugal Telecom (PT), whoseoperating assets have been incorporated into Brazil's Oi, led by total number of bundled customers, accountingfor a 44 percent market share, its main rival NOS was ahead interms of revenues with 43 percent against PT's 42 percent.
Vodafone had a customer market share of 9.4 percentand was the only company to grow that measure in the quarter.
Altice, which is set to buy PT's assets from Oi,had a subscriber market share of 7.7 percent..
(1 US dollar = 0.8053 euro) (Reporting by Daniel Alvarenga and Andrei Khalip; Editing byMark Potter)