Serbia Telecommunications Report 2013

Serbias telecommunications market remains behind the most developed in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of investment in next-generation net networks and value-added services.

However, there is rapid growth occurring in broadband services, wireless and wireline, as the market converges with its regional peers. We believe that investment in wireline and wireless data network capacity and coverage is opening new value added service markets that will evolve rapidly in the shortto- medium term, including OTT services, VOD, converged services and smart infrastructure.

Key Data:

- The mobile broadband market has grown rapidly 2009-2011 over which time the penetration of dedicated mobile broadband services increased from 1.4% to 3.5%.

- Vip Mobile has continued to make gains in terms of market share by subscriptions, reaching 16.4% in Q212, up from 14.9% in Q211.

- Serbias Risk/Rewards score improved under BMIs new methodology, although it continues to score below the regional average in all categories, except Industry Rewards.

Key Trends And Developments

Operators have continued to invest in wireless data services, which BMI believes is opening up new sources of revenue growth. In July 2012 Telenor Serbia announced it had upgraded its 3G base stations to dual carrier (DC) HSPA+ standard. Meanwhile, in September 2012 Vip announced that its 3G HSPA+ network reached 72% population coverage. The operator added that the network covers all the towns in Serbia with at least 10,000 residents - as well as a number of smaller towns. In October 2012 Telekom Srbija announced it had completed the upgrade of mt:s network to the HSPA+ broadband standard to cover 75% of the Serbian population, including all major cities. Further, operators have stated they are prepared to roll out LTE services once licences become available.

Meanwhile. operators have begun to launch new value-added services. In April 2012 Telekom Srbija and Swedish equipment Ericsson partnered to launch smart transport services in the city of Pancevo. The two services, EcoBus and BusTracker enable citizens to access information about air quality, atmospheric conditions and bus locations via the internet or their mobile phones. Telekom Srbija also launched an NFC payment pilot in April 2012 in partnership with Banca Intesa. NFC enables customers to make payments by pressing their mobile handset against a payment terminal.

The price of this market report covers 4 quarterly reports on this sector. This quarterly report will be downloadable instantly as a PDF document, with the 3 remaining reports delivered at regular intervals throughout the year.