11. 09. 2008

POPULARITY OF MOBILE PHONES AND INTERNET INCREASES

Belgrade, September 11, 2008 (Danas) - The president of the managing board of the Agency for Telecommunications, Jovan Radunović, declared yesterday at a press conference that the overall income in the telecommunications sector was 117.7 billion dinars or 1.47 billion euro (4.7% GDP) last year, which represents a 13% increase in comparison with the previous year. The main source of the income was mobile telephony (57%), while fixed telephony generated a 28% income, and the Internet that of only 4%.

- More often than not, Serbian citizens opt for mobile telephony, which has recorded an exceptional growth of the number of users. We have 112 users per 100 citizens, which means that some citizens use even two mobile phones. That is a good result even in comparison with the EU. The growth of Internet users was satisfactory, and even better results are expected this year. However, it is highly significant for us that the number of users of the broadband Internet has increased by 7.8% -- Radunović stressed.

According to him, the basic telecommunication package (including a fixed phone, a mobile phone with a prepaid tariff package and RTS subscription) cost 7.8% of the average salary in 2006, whereas it cost 4.7% last year. As for the enlarged package (fixed phone, postpaid mobile phone, RTS subscription, ADSL and cable TV), the bill price has dropped from 16.9% of the average salary to 12.79%.

When asked about fixed telephony, Radunović said that the income was decreasing, but could be compensated for either by the price increase (because they were the lowest in the region and without such intervention there would be no new players in that telecommunication sphere), or by a better utilization of the network. The level of digitalization of the fixed telephone network reached 93.3% in 2007, and will approach 100% this year.

Radunović also reminded the public that RATEL had finished its preparatory work for announcing a tender in order to introduce new operators into fixed telephony, who would provide services via WiMax and CDMA technologies. What remains is that the Ministry of Telecommunications ought to do its part of the work, upon which RATEL could announce tenders and finish them in three to six months.

Statistical data

According to the data for 2007, the fixed telephony has 2.85 million subscribers, while the number of mobile telephone users has increased from 6.6 to 8.45 million. The number of Internet subscribers has raised from one million to 1.26 million, and the cable TV users from 541 thousand to 774 thousand. The average bill for the fixed telephony was 928 dinars last year, the one for a prepaid mobile phone 351 dinar, and the one for the postpaid mobile phone 1257 dinars. The average ADSL bill was 1309 dinars, and 563 dinars for the cable TV. The market leader in the sphere of mobile telephony is Telecom, with 59.4% of the market share. The runner-up is Telenor (34.6%), and Vip follows with 6%. Nevertheless, the third operator commenced work only last June.