Serbia's mobile phone subscribers decline in Q4

BELGRADE (Serbia), February 27 (SeeNews) - The number of mobile phone subscribers in Serbia fell to 8.532 million at the end of December, from 8.840 million at end-September, according to data of the country's telecommunications regulator.

The number of fixed-line subscribers edged down to 2.30 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 from 2.31 million in the third quarter, figures posted on the website of the Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services (Ratel) earlier this week show.

Serbia, with a population of around 7 million, had three operators active in the mobile segment at the end of last year - state-owned Telekom Srbija, the local arm of Czech investment group PPF - Yettel, formerly known as Telenor, and the local unit of A1 Telekom Austria Group - A1 Srbija, known previously as Vip Mobile. In the fourth quarter, Telekom Srbija completed the acquisition of local virtual mobile operator Globaltel, which had been providing independent telecommunications services in the country since late 2016.

At the end of 2023, Telekom Srbija had a 44.15% share of the overall number of subscribers, followed by Yettel with 31.87% and A1 Srbija with 23.98%.

Serbia's media content subscribers increased to 2.32 million at the end of December, from 2.28 million at end-September. The leading platform for distribution of radio and TV programmes to end-users in Serbia was digital CATV, with a market share of 49.7%, followed by Internet Protocol television (IPTV) and Direct To Home (DTH) with 31.2% and 15.2%, respectively. Analogue CATV had a market share of 1.6%.

The number of fixed broadband Internet users rose to 2.07 million in the final quarter of last year, from 2.03 million in the previous quarter. A total of 38.7% of the fixed broadband subscribers used cable connections, followed by Fiber to the x (FTTx) and x Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL) with 28.1% and 26.4%, respectively, and wireless connections with 4.5%.