Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Mobile Plus SEE conference in Zagreb
Zagreb, December 15th and 16th 2008 – In the organization of Magenta Global 1st Mobile Plus SEE event was held. The event featured an array of speakers that addressed the main theme on "How to increase mobile revenue beyond voice and data". The event featured speakers from major regional (SEE) players from mobile operators, regulators, mobile application developers etc. More on the conference can be seen at: http://www.magenta-global.com.sg/MobilePlusSEE/agenda.html Telcro Grupa director Kresimir Profaca held a presentation on how to increase revenue potential through mobile wholesale strategy. The topic also addressed how mobile operators can profit from MVNO phenomenon that has already been proven in the Western Europe and is increasingly coming to the countries of CEE region. The topic also addressed various MVNO attempts on Croatian market, such as T-Mobile's and ZaBa project ZabaMobil, VIPnet's "tomato" and T-Mobile's project K-Mobile. The entire presentation can be found here: Click here.
Monday, November 24, 2008
T-Mobile ordered to allow MVNO access
Telcro Grupa has started project of MVNO in Croatia at the end of 2006. In the beginning and mid 2007 Telcro Grupa has asked mobile operators to allow it access to their network in order for it to be able to offer MVNO services. One of the operators Telcro Grupa negotiated with was T-Mobile Croatia, however due to T-Mobile not being willing to offer access conditions to Telcro Grupa, the case was passed to HAKOM (Croatian agency for post and electronic communications, i.e. local Croatian telecom regulator – www.telekom.hr ). On October 23rd, the regulator decided in favor of Telcro and has ordered T-Mobile Croatia to allow Telcro Grupa access to their network in order for Telcro to be able to offer MVNO services. Although Croatian laws have been allowing MVNOs in the country for several years now, this was the first decision by the regulator that actually enacts those laws. This decision is seen as important milestone in the development of mobile communications in Croatia. In most European countries where mobile wholesale business (MVNOs) has not been initiated commercially it was the decisions of the regulators that initiated development of MVNOs. The most notable examples being those of Ireland, Spain and Slovenia. Croatian market is interesting for new entrants, especially due to its above average profitability, but the main barrier to entry so far was the regulatory uncertainty in MVNO arena. This decision removed that uncertainty. Across Europe, MVNOs hold on averega 10% of the market share, while in the most developed northern countries the number goes even higher than 20%. Mobile operators that were the first to develop the best wholesale strategies were the winners of this game and gained significant increases in revenue and subscribers market share. It is expected that this trend is soon to begin in Croatia. The text of the regulatory decision can be viewed here:Click here.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Review of Croatian mobile market: Q1-Q3 2008
After the first nine months of 2008, Croatian market is still dominated by the duopoly of T-Mobile and VIPnet (Mobilkom Austria), although Tele2 (No. 3 player) is slowly closing that gap regarding the number of customers. Revenue concentration in possession of T-Mobile and VIPnet has risen in comparison to the last quarter and it is still somewhat more than 93%. Tele2 is, however, still far from its break even numbers. The details of the conditions Tele2 got on a national roaming deal from T-Mobile are still a secret, but T-Mobile had a spike in revenue this quarter. If we compare it with VIPnet’s negative revenue growth (comparing to Q3 2007) it can be concluded that portion of that spike can be attributed to T-Mobile wholesale revenues from Tele2 national roaming deal. Tele2 started using T-Mobile’s network on June 1st 2008. Tele2 CAPEX investments are still small compared to VIPnet or T-Mobile. Finally, the numbers for this period of Q1-Q3 2008 are the following: T-Mobile is still leader in both SIM (customer) market share and revenue market share, with 46,4% of customer share and 50,2% of revenue share. VIPnet is following with customer share being 42,4% and revenue share being 43,5%. Tele2 is still lagging far away (although improving) with customer share of 11,2% and revenue share of about 6,4%.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Croatian government to make public call for new telecom council members
On its closed session, Croatian government decided to announce public call for three new members of the Council of Croatian telecom regulatory body (HAKOM – Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency), says office for public relations of Croatian government. Accordingly to the new Law on electronic communications, Croatian parliament, based on the proposal by Croatian government, is to appoint president, deputy president and members of the Council. In the process of proposal of the members, Croatian government is to announce public call for the proposal. Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency Council currently has 4 members and it was formed on July 1st 2008. when the new Law on Electronic Communications was enacted in Croatia. This new body was formed by merger of Croatian Agency for Telecommunications (HAT) and Council for Postal Services. The law prescribes a total of 7 members of the Council, hence the Croatian parliament has to appoint 3 more members.Click here.
Friday, September 19, 2008
CEECom conference
PRAGUE, September 17th and 18th 2008 – In the organization of Informa Telecoms and Media (one of the most established telecom research and conference organizing firms) 13th CEECom event was held. The event is a leading annual telecoms strategy discussion and networking event in the region of Central and Eastern Europe attended by high level telecom executives, regulators, investment and finance community as well as different telecom vendors. This year’s themes reflected the latest current and expected future trends in the telecom industry in the CEE region. Some of the topics were how global trends affect the region, how to improve operators’ profitability in the more and more saturated telecom industry in CEE region etc. Full agenda can be found here: http://cee.comworldseries.com/conference/conference_agenda . Telcro Grupa also participated in this year’s event. Telcro Grupa was present as a delegate and Kresimir Profaca, director of Telcro Grupa gave a keynote presentation as a speaker. The topic addressed how mobile operators can profit from MVNO phenomenon that has already been proven in the Western Europe and is increasingly coming to the countries of CEE region. The topic addressed themes such as: different mobile wholesale strategy models, role of the regulator, MVNO trends, MVNO success examples etc. The entire presentation can be found here.Click here.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Croatian government approved new statute for the telecom regulator
Croatian government approved the new statute for Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency (HAKOM). This new statute was drafted by Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency and it should reflect new rules in electronic communications defined by new law on electronic communications that has been in effect since July 1st 2008. This approval decision was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia on September 17th 2008. The decision itself was brought on September 12th 2008 and it is based on the draft statute document that was delivered to Croatian government on September 11th 2008. The entire decision can be read at (in Croatian) http://www.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeno/2008/3174.htm . The law on electronic communications required the draft of the statute to be delivered to Croatian government 30 days after the law was in effect, which was, accordingly to the law, on July 31st 2008. As it can be seen, it was delivered to Croatian government by Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency with certain delay.Click here.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Review of Croatian mobile market (first half of 2008)
After the first half of 2008, Croatian market is still dominated by the duopoly of T-Mobile and VIPnet (Mobilkom Austria). Revenue concentration in possession of these two operators is somewhat more than 93%. Although Tele2 improved its ratio between small revenue share and relatively “ok” SIM cards share in the market comparing to the last periods, it is still far from its break even numbers. Supposedly Tele2 got much better national roaming deal from T-Mobile than it had previously with VIPnet. Tele2 started using T-Mobile’s network on June 1st 2008. If the deal is better, better financial results should be expected. After Tele2 announced sales of its German operations, there were even more rumors of it selling Croatian operations as well. Company is saying that they will focus on infrastructure operations they have (such as Croatian is), but what is an indicative factor is their small investments in the infrastructure in Croatia. For the comparison, CAPEX for Tele2 was only 27 million HRK, while VIPnet’s investments (CAPEX) were 134 million HRK. The numbers for this (second) quarter of 2008 (and H1 of 2008) are the following. T-Mobile is still leader in both SIM (customer) market share and revenue market share, with 47% of customer share and about 50% of revenue share. VIPnet is similar in this, with customer share being around 43% and revenue share being also around 43%. Tele2 is still lagging far away with customer share of 10% and revenue share of about 7%.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Regulator refused to issue tender for mobile operator
Croatian regulator agency for post and telecom, at the end of May 2008 rejected the request from Telcro Grupa to issue a public tender for fourth mobile GSM license in Croatia. Telcro has proposed to the agency to investigate how and weather it would be feasible to bring in another mobile player to Croatia. Telcro proposed that new tender would be either locally focused (with more lenient obligations of building base stations) and having smaller concession fees. Telecom agency rejected the request and the effort to investigate the tender saying that current law and bylaws determine exactly how licensing process should be done and that they cannot do anything about it at the moment. Croatia has a population of 4.4 million and has two complete infrastructures (Tele2 has major trouble building the network) and no virtual operators, while Slovenia, a half size country, has four mobile operators, plus two very successfull virtual operators. In Bulgaria, tender for fourth mobile operator has been issued recently.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
New electronic communications law passes
Croatian parliament has passed the new law on electronic communications on June 19th 2008. The new law will be effective July 1st 2008. This law reflects recommendations and directives accepted from EC (European Commission) and is one of the requirements that Republic of Croatia has to accept prior to joining EU. This new law gives a lot more power to the regulatory agency and we expect further and quicker liberalization of communications industry (especially in the area of mobile communications) in Croatia. The new agency will be responsible for both telecommunications and postal services. The law, however, drew some controversies in the public regarding the DTK infrastcuture, the issue that has been discussed in Croatian telecom industry for a long time.Click here.
Monday, April 07, 2008
The public discussion on new law finalized
Croatian ministry of see, transport and infrastructure has presented the draft of the new law on electronic communications on March 14th 2008. The new law will apply to all where so far current law on telecommunications was applicable, and more. The public discussion was open until March 28th 2008, but then prolonged until April 4th 2008. The discussion is finished and soon we can expect that the comments given by various entities (firms, physical persons, government bodies etc.) will be published on the website of the ministry. Telcro Grupa has also submitted its comments, opinion and suggestions to the ministry, and they will probably be published on the ministry website as well. The ministry has announced that the new law could be put to a vote in Croatian parliament already in May 2008.Click here.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Croatian mobile telephony market in 2007
Now that all of the operators from Croatian market (T-Mobile, VIPnet, Tele2) have published their results, it can be seen that Croatian market is changing slowly. It is still heavily dominated by two incumbents: T-Mobile and VIPnet. T-Mobile finished 2007 with a record revenue of €581 million, while VIPnet was close with €514 million, both of them growing almost 10% comparing to the year before. Profitability of those two operators was not affected and even slightly grew in comparison to 2006 (EBITDA margins: T-Mobile 43%, VIPnet 41%). The third operator, Tele2, is struggling badly, losing about €10 million each quarter and growing slowly than market (claiming market share numbers to be almost 10%, while the revenue share is barely 5%). Most of the troubles of the third operator are assigned to inability to build their own network while suffering large costs of national roaming. Penetration in Croatia is high (claimed to be up to 115%), but large portion of that is due to inactive SIM cards and users having multiple SIM cards in order to achieve arbitrage among all complex tariffs offerings. There are no MVNOs currently in Croatian market, however, both T-Mobile and VIPnet have launched their separate brand entities (some in cooperation with other institutions: T-Mobile launched branded reselling with ZABA and announced launch of Kmobile in March 2008 with Konzum, and some on their own, such as “tomato” by VIPnet).
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Conclusion of the discussion on directions for new law on electronic communications published
Zagreb, August 29th 2007 - On May 9th 2007, government of the Republic of Croatia has accepted the directions for drafting the new law on electronic communications. Following the acceptance of the directions, Ministry of Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development conducted public discussion on those directions, where each of the entities in the market, private or public interested parties were able to contribute to the draft of the future law based on those directions. As one of the interested parties, Telcro Grupa has submitted its comments. Comments of all participants where published on the website of the Ministry. For more information,Click here.
Friday, June 15, 2007
MVNOs & Mobile Brands World Congress
Berlin, June 15th 2007 - Informa Telecoms & Media has organized MVNOs & Mobile Brands which was held in Berling June 12-14th 2007. Congress was attended by representatives from major MVNOs and more than 10 global MNOs. The major goal of the conference was to evaluate current results and trends of the MVNO industry. There were participants from Croatia as well, one of them being Telcro Grupa d.o.o., MVNO that plans entry into Croatian market.
Through workshops and presentations delegated and exhibitors presented experiences, opportunities and challenges of the MVNO industry. Presentations and workshops have been held by 70 leading experts from MVNO and related sectors. "The experiences and trends in the MVNO industry that were presented at this congress confirmed our beliefs and strategy to offers MVNO services in the Croatian market", said Kresimir Profaca, director of Telcro Grupa d.o.o., after the congress.
Accordingly to the statistics, MVNO market has a great potential. Informa Telecoms & Media research predicts MVNO subscriber base to more than double by 2011, reaching the number of 133 million subscribers globally (being around 60 mil. today - 2007).
Looking at the Croatian market and comparing it to other markets (regarding penetration, prices, quality and quantity of services offered), it could be seen that Croatia is ready for the entry of the MVNOs that would offer more focused and segmented services to the end consumer. By its definition, MVNO is a legal entity that does not own its radio network infrastructure, but it does have other elements and equipment that enable it to connect to the network operator, customize and create its own services and offer it to te end consumer with added value.
The most developed MVNO markets are those of Western Europe, where for example in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, there is a large number of virtual operators (e.g. only in The Netherlands there is more than 40 of them). From that point of view, it was interesting to listen to the delegate from T-Mobile that has presented its openness towards certain kinds of MVNOs in the countries where it has presence. This operator has relationships with many MVNOs in many different markets throughout Western Europe and USA. On the other side, countries of South Eastern Europe have not developed its MVNO markets yet. With the exception of EU member Slovenia, no other country has mobile virtual operators.
Friday, June 01, 2007
On June 12th throughout June 14th, MVNO World Congress will be held in Berlin. MVNO & Mobile Brands World Congress is one of the leading events in the MVNO sectors. It is an event that will bring together MVNOs, MVNEs, MNOs, content owners and providers and aspiring mobile brands. The congress will cover variety of themes regarding mobile communications focused on MVNO business model.
The congress will discuss and present solutions regarding the most pressing issues in today´s MVNO sector. The themes and topics discussed will be:
Presentations and workshops will be held by industry leaders from MNOs, MVNOs, consultants, solution providers etc.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Croatia listed in Telecompaper´s MVNO list
Telecompaper´s list of MVNOs is the most comprehensive list of MVNOs that can be found on the web and access free of charge. As MVNO market is already well developed in Western Europe, the list of Western European countries was well updated. MVNO is a new phenomenon in the Central and Eastern Europe, so the list is getting populated for those countries as well. Today, Croatia was added to the list, with its (so far) two listings: Tomato (no frill, sub brand of MNO VIPnet) and Telcro. More can be found on Telecompaper´s web site:Click here.