[March 23, 2010] Croatia Telecommunications Report Q2 2010 - New Market Report Published Tweet (M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Croatia Telecommunications Report Q2 2010 : New Company and Market Analysis For this Q210 edition of the Croatia Telecommunications Report, we have amended slightly our forecasts for the country's mobile, fixed-line and internet markets. Our forecasts are broadly unchanged, although we have reined in our expectations for the mobile market amid rising saturation levels and slack consumer spending, while the fixed-line sector has been characterised by a steeper drop in subscriber numbers than had previously been anticipated. Meanwhile, growth prospects in the broadband arena remain robust. Incumbent T-Hrvatski Telekom (T-HT) continues to dominate all three sectors, though it is facing increasing challenges from alternative operators on all fronts and is gradually seeing its market shares being eroded. In the mobile sector, its T-Mobile division lost ground to prepaid-focused rival Tele2 in 2009, despite the newcomer's decision in Q209 to disconnect nearly 30% of its user base deemed to have been inactive. Telekom Austria-backed Vipnet exhibited robust growth in 9M09, but noted a net subscriber loss in Q309, which stopped it from making the most of a lacklustre performance from TMobile and narrowing the gap between the two. We believe that there were 6.354mn mobile subscribers in Croatia at the end of 2009, a y-o-y increase of 8.1% and a penetration rate of 143.3%. The mobile operators remain reluctant to disclose data relating to the usage of their 3G networks, although figures for non-voice mobile service revenues disclosed by T-Mobile indicate that the usage of the types of value-added services accessed by next generation networks is rising at a healthy pace. The national regulatory authority suggests that the number of HSPA/UMTS subscribers grew by 79% in the year to September 2009, yielding a subscriber base of more than 242,100. Even allowing for the possibility that this figure includes a number of inactive customers, this still reinforces our view that future growth opportunities in the mobile segment lie in migrating customers to higher value 3G services. In the meantime, though, while Tele2 continues to focus heavily on the prepaid segment, the others will also look to at least growing their low-cost users at respectable rates. By 2014, we expect that there will be 1.514mn 3G subscribers in Croatia, which would represent 21.1% of the overall mobile user base at that time. Even while the fixed-line market declined by 2.3% in 2009, interest in broadband services remained strong, with user numbers growing by 27% to 669,000. We forecast that the number of broadband subscribers will reach 1.3mn by 2014, or a penetration rate of 28.5%. T-HT is also the dominant player here, but it is ceding market share to newcomers, particularly those offering voice services as well. IPTV is quickly becoming a key differentiator for alternative broadband operators, and 2009 ended with five IPTV services on the market, following launches by Amis and Optima. To view this report, please use the following link: http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/r.ashx?id=R036M6D0O275241&prk=8c4d85a74631e8b6937044d85566c0cc ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) (c) 2010 M2 COMMUNICATIONS [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]