Slovakia - Slowakije: telecommunicatie - 2012

The report shows an upward trend in mobile subscriptions, downward trend in fixed line subscriptions and strong subscription growth in Slovakia.

BMI's updated annual report on Slovakia's telecoms market extends forecasts to 2016 and includes data from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic (TÚ SR) for the first half of 2011. It also includes operational and financial data published by Slovakia's fixed-line incumbent operator Slovak Telekom (which is owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom and operates under the T-Com brand), Orange Slovakia, Telefónica O2, which rebranded as Telefónica Slovakia in May 2011, and Liberty Global-backed UPC Slovakia. We have also included our five-year mobile ARPU forecast in this update to our Slovakia telecoms market report.

Based on market data published by Slovakia's three mobile network operators, BMI calculates there were 6.285mn mobile subscribers in the country at the end of September 2011. This represented growth of 1.4% q-o-q and 4.4% y-o-y. It also brought mobile penetration rate to 115.5%, up from 110.8% a year earlier. BMI notes that growth in Slovakia's mobile market during 9M11 and for the most part of 2009 and 2010 was largely driven by third-ranked Telefónica. The operator's strategy of incentivising phone users that port their numbers to its network from rival networks is the biggest growth driver on its network. According to data released by Telefónica in November 2011, about 362,000 customers have ported their numbers to its network since the launch of mobile number portability (MNP) in 2008, of which 116,434 ported their numbers during 9M11. By contrast, only 9,548 numbers have been ported away from Telefónica's network since 2008, of which 4,786 were in the first nine months of 2011. Over the next five years, we expect operators to focus on high-value services in order to offset the effect of lower tariffs in traditional voice and SMS services. Our revised forecast envisages mobile penetration to reach 120.2% by the end of 2016, equivalent of a mobile subscriber base of about 6.6mn.

Regulatory data show fixed-line subscriptions in Slovakia have been on a downward trend since 2005. This is in line with general fixed-line market trends in the region. At the end of December 2010, there were about 982,000 fixed lines in operation. This represented a penetration rate of 18%. During the first half of 2011, fixed-line subscriptions fell by about 16,000 to reach 966,000. Although we expect this trend to continue over our forecast period because of the growing prominence of VoIP services and wireless broadband access technologies, we believe strong demand for triple-play offerings will reduce the rate of decline in the latter stages of our forecast period.

In contrast to the fixed-line segment, Slovakia's broadband market continues to record strong subscriber growth. This is mainly driven by FTTx, WiMAX and mobile broadband services. There were 1.232mn broadband connections in Slovakia at the end of December 2010, representing a penetration rate of 22.6%. We forecast a steady growth in the broadband market over the next five years through to 2016 as increasing competition in the sector results in network expansion to underserved areas and lower tariffs for end-users. We expect broadband penetration in Slovakia to reach 28.9% by 2016, equivalent of a subscriber base of 1.596mn.

Source: By Business Monitor International (BMI) on 9th January 2012.

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