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Slovakia Telecommunications Report 2011
Business Monitor International, Dec 2010, Pages: 87
Business Monitor International's Slovakia Telecommunications Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, telecommunication associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Slovakia's telecommunications industry.
BMI’s 2010 report on the Slovak telecoms market contains updated and extended forecasts, which anticipate the development of the country’s fixed-line, internet, broadband and mobile sectors through to the end of 2014. Our new forecasts incorporate Q309 data published by Slovakia’s fixed-line incumbent operator Slovak Telekom (which is owned by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom and operates under the TCom brand), as well as the country’s three mobile operators, T-Mobile, Orange and Telefónica O2.
Notable developments in recent months within the Slovak telecoms market include the news, in October 2009, that Slovak Telekom and T-Mobile Slovakia would be merged into a single company in 2010 as part of a wider strategy by their parent, Deutsche Telekom, to consolidate its wireline and wireless businesses. The T-Mobile and Slovak Telekom’s T-Com brands will be retained.
The latest figures from Slovakia’s cellular operators showed that the mobile subscriber market grew by just 0.6% in the first nine months of 2009. It appears that all the new customer growth experienced in the first nine months of 2009 came from the country’s third largest mobile firm, O2 Slovakia. By contrast, both Orange and T-Mobile reported a net loss of mobile customers in the first nine months of the year. Despite the moderate growth, many observers believe that Slovakia’s mobile market has now reached saturation point. This is not to say that the market no longer offers growth potential – indeed, as this report shows, all three of Slovakia’s mobile operators continue to report growth in the number of new contract customers, 3G subscribers and mobile broadband users.
In 2009, the market for traditional fixed telephone lines entered a period of sustained decline. Reasons for the decline include the proliferation of mobile and IP telephony services. Another notable development within the Slovak telecoms market has been the relatively recent expansion in the number of mobile broadband connections. According to the regulator, customers who use a cellular network to access the internet, either via a mobile handset or by using a USB device or mobile data card, grew by 195% in 2008 to surpass 567,000. The growth of mobile broadband occurred alongside a number of interesting changes in the fixed broadband market. The number of fixed broadband connections increased by over 31% in 2008 to reach 619,000 at the end of the year; this gave Slovakia a broadband penetration rate of 11.4%. Ongoing investments by T-Com and cable operator UPC Slovakia in new high-speed broadband networks is thought to be having a positive impact on the subscriber market; BMI estimates that, by the end of 2009, Slovakia’s broadband penetration rate had risen to almost 14%.
Slovakia has fallen from sixth to seventh place in BMI’s latest Business Environment Ratings for Central and Eastern Europe. The country receives a weaker overall rating as a result of lower scores in the Telecoms Market and Country Risk categories. The weaker Telecoms Market score reflects, among other things, a mobile subscriber market that is looking increasingly saturated. The weaker Country Risk score, meanwhile, reflects the recession that Slovakia’s economy experienced in 2009.
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