Executive summary
Since the fall of the Milo?evic regime in 2000 Serbia has focused on rebuilding its economy and its relations with Europe. Real GDP levels increased almost six fold during 2000-2008, elevating the country to middle income status as defined by the World Bank. Despite the fact that its financial system was not exposed to the financial instruments that are at the heart of the recent global financial turmoil, Serbia's economy has suffered due to its reliance on external funding to support its external trade deficit, resulting in IMF assistance totalling €2.9 billion as May 2009.
Recognising the potential socio-economic advantages of integration with the European Union, Serbia signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU in April 2008, a concrete step towards joining the EU. The SAA oversees closer integration with the EU and covers commitments to political, economic, trade, or human rights reform in a country in exchange for tariff-free access to some or all EU markets, financial or technical assistance.
As part of the EU pre-accession process, Serbia has received financial aid to build public institutions and improve cross-border co-operation under EU funding mechanism Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). Under the IPA, Serbia is expected to receive €194.8 million during 2009, €198.7 million during 2010, €202.7 million during 2011 and €206.8 million during 2012.
EU reforms have found their way into Serbia's telecom industry, which has adopted the EU's regulatory framework for communications, which promotes competition as the most efficient way to offer communications products and services while ensuring universal access. Total telecom market revenue is expanding although growth is not uniform, with the Internet and mobile markets recording the strongest growth, a trend that is set to continue due to increasing broadband and mobile take up and usage.
A considerable amount of network investment has been undertaken by incumbent and alternative operators to offer broadband services, which are available via ADSL, cable and wireless. Internet usage in Serbia is growing due to rising income levels and improved affordability, with broadband representing an increasing proportion of Internet subscriptions as subscribers upgrade from dial-up services, a trend that will continue in 2009 due to significant number of users still on dial-up services.
Serbia boasts an extensive broadcasting market, with programming available via radio and TV programme distribution via cable, wireless cable (MMDS), terrestrial FTA and broadband TV (IPTV). Digital TV programming is available and triple play offerings have been introduced.
Serbia's mobile market boasts penetration levels indicative of saturation although multiple SIM card ownership is high. With a new mobile network operator resulting in increased competition, the established mobile network operators have focused on lifting ARPU levels by encouraging prepaid subscribers to migrate to postpaid plans as well as promoting increased spending on mobile broadband/content services, which are supported by widely accessible 3G/HSDPA networks.
Key highlights:
Data from the regulator showed that broadband subscriptions surpassed those of dial-up for the first time in 2008. Future growth will be centred on dial-up users upgrading to broadband. Behind the rise in broadband has been the incumbent, with ADSL connections doubling in 2008 alone. A similar rate of growth can be expected in 2009 given the significant number of remaining dial up users and strong competition from other platforms, notably cable, with a major cable operator expanding its broadband offering to include 100Mb/s fibre-based offerings.
A healthy pay TV market is evident as indicated by growing subscriber levels and cable TV market revenue. Serbia's dominant cable TV operator accounts for over half of the market although its position may be threatened by the launch of IPTV services by the telecoms incumbent, given the reach of the latter's network and rapidly growing broadband subscriber base.
DTTV developments are progressing after the MPEG-4 and DVB-T2 standards were chosen in early 2009 for Serbia's migration to digital terrestrial TV. Analogue switch off is scheduled for April 2012 rather than the 2015 date suggested by the ITU to synchronise Serbia with neighbouring countries.
Competition is shaking up a previously cosy duopoly in the mobile market, leading to increased take up and penetration levels indicative of maturing market. Future revenue growth is expected to come from increasing ARPU levels by encouraging prepaid users to take up postpaid offers, increasingly segmented offerings and encouraging take up of mobile broadband services based on expanding WCDMA/HSDPA networks.Serbia-broadband and telecoms statistics-2008-2009
Sector20082009 (e)
Broadband
Fixed broadband subscribers (thousand)470700
Fixed broadband penetration rate6%9%
Subscribers to telecoms services
Fixed-line telephone subscribers (thousand)3,0803,100
Mobile phone subscribers (thousand)9,70010,100
Table of Contents
1. Executive summary
2. Key statistics
2.1 Country overview
3. Telecommunications market
3.1 Overview of Serbia's telecom market
4. Regulatory environment
4.1 Telecommunications law of 2003
4.2 Regulatory authorities
4.3 Telecom sector liberalisation in Serbia
4.4 Privatisation
4.4.1 Telekom Serbia
4.4.2 Mobi 63
4.5 Interconnect
5. Fixed network operator in Serbia
5.1 Telekom Serbia
6. Telecommunications infrastructure
6.1 National telecom network
6.2 International infrastructure
6.3 Telecoms & IT
7. Internet market
7.1 Overview
7.1.1 Internet statistics
8. Broadband market
8.1 Overview
8.1.1 Broadband statistics
8.2 Cable broadband
8.3 Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)
8.4 Wireless broadband
8.4.1 WiMAX
8.4.2 WiFi
9. Digital media
9.1 Overview of broadcasting market
9.2 Regulatory issues
9.3 Broadband TV (IPTV)
9.4 Cable TV
9.5 Satellite-based digital pay TV developments
9.6 Digital Terrestrial TV (DTTV)
10. Mobile communications
10.1 Overview of Serbia's mobile market
10.1.1 Mobile statistics
10.2 Regulatory issues
10.2.1 Third mobile licence for Serbia
10.3 Mobile technologies
10.3.1 Digital
10.3.2 Third generation mobile
10.4 Major mobile operators
10.4.1 Telenor
10.4.2 Mobilna Telefonija Srbija (MTS)
10.4.3 VIP Mobile
10.5 Mobile voice services
10.5.1 Prepaid
10.6 Mobile data services
10.6.1 Short Message Service (SMS) / Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
10.6.2 General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
10.6.3 Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution (EDGE)
10.6.4 BlackBerry
10.6.5 Mobile broadband
10.7 Mobile content and applications
11. Forecasts
11.1 Forecasts-fixed broadband subscribers-2009-2012; 2018
11.1.1 Scenario 1-higher broadband subscriber growth
11.1.2 Scenario 2-lower broadband subscriber growth
11.2 Notes on scenario forecasts
12. Related reports
Table 1-Country statistics Serbia-2008
Table 2-Telephone network statistics-2008
Table 3-Internet user statistics-2008
Table 4-Internet subscriber statistics-2008
Table 5-Broadband statistics-2008
Table 6-Mobile statistics-March 2009
Table 7-National telecommunications authority
Table 8-Telecom market revenue by sector-2007-2008
Table 9-Fixed lines in service and teledensity-2004-2010
Table 10-Total international Internet bandwidth-2004-2008
Table 11-Internet users, subscribers and penetration rates-1998-2008
Table 12-Internet users by age and gender-2008
Table 13-Internet usage by company size-2008
Table 14-Internet market revenue-2005-2008
Table 15-Dial-up subscribers-2004-2008
Table 16-Broadband subscriptions by connection type-2004-2008
Table 17-Broadband subscribers and penetration rate-2005-2008
Table 18-Pay TV operator market share of subscribers-2008
Table 19-Mobile operators, subscribers and annual change-March 2009
Table 20-Mobile subscribers and penetration rate-1998-2009
Table 21-Mobile market share by subscribers-2003-2008
Table 22-Mobile market share by revenue-2003-2008
Table 23-Mobile market revenue-2005-2008
Table 24-Telenor financial data-2007-2009
Table 25-Telenor prepaid and postpaid ARPU and MOU-2007-2009
Table 26-VIP Mobile financial data-2007-2008
Table 27-Total prepaid mobile users-2005-2008
Table 28-Telenor prepaid users-2006-2009
Table 29-Total SMS & MMS messages sent-2003-2008
Table 30-SMS messages sent per operator-2004-2008
Table 31-Mobile broadband subscribers and penetration rate-2007-2008
Table 32-Forecast fixed broadband subscribers-higher growth scenario-2009-2012; 2018
Table 33-Forecast fixed broadband subscribers-lower growth scenario-2009-2012; 2018
