Croatia - Mobile Infrastructure, Broadband, Operators - Statistics and Analyses

Synopsis

Croatia’s mobile market has one of the highest penetration rates in the Balkans region. Three network operators dominate the market, though there is also room for a small number of MVNOs. The network operators have focused on improving ARPU by encouraging prepaid subscribers to migrate to postpaid plans, and on developing revenue from customer use of mobile data services. To this end considerable investment is ongoing in upgraded network infrastructure, with the incumbent telco Hrvatski Telekom spearheading trials of 5G technologies and services.

Nevertheless, the market during the last few years has been hampered by a poor economic climate which has held back customer spend. In a bid to reduce State debt, the government tripled the annual fee paid by licensees for spectrum, which has led to increased pricing.

This report offers a review of Croatia’s mobile market, including a variety of financial and performance statistics on service providers. It assesses network developments and deployed technologies and examines a range of mobile services including m-commerce.

Key developments:

Hrvatski Telekom launches Croatia’s first NB-IoT network, trials 5G technologies;
Regulator sets new fixed and mobile termination rates to 2019;
VIPnet rebranded as A1 Croatia;
Government abolishes 6% tax on mobile services revenue;
Regulator allocates remaining 800MHz spectrum;
Report update includes the regulator’s market data to June 2018, telcos’ operating and financial data to Q2 2018, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Hrvatski Telekom (HT), A1 Croatia (VIPnet), Tele2 Croatia.

Table of Contents

1. Synopsis
2. Market analysis
3. Mobile statistics
- 3.1 General statistics
4. Mobile infrastructure
- 4.1 5G
- 4.2 4G (LTE)
- 4.3 3G
- 4.4 IoT and M2M networks
5. Mobile data
- 5.1 SMS/ MMS
6. Mobile broadband
- 6.1 Regulatory issues
  - 6.1.1 Third GSM licence and 3G licences
  - 6.1.2 Fourth GSM licence
  - 6.1.3 Spectrum auctions
  - 6.1.4 Spectrum fees
  - 6.1.5 Mobile Number Portability (MNP)
- 6.2 Roaming
  - 6.2.1 Network Termination Rates (MTRs)
7. Major mobile operators
- 7.1 Hrvatski Telekom (HT)
- 7.2 A1 Croatia
- 7.3 Tele2 Croatia
- 7.4 Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)
8. Mobile content and applications
- 8.1 M-commerce
9. Related reports

Table 1 – Historic – Active mobile subscribers and penetration rate – 1997 - 2009
Table 2 – Active mobile subscribers and penetration rate – 2010 - 2019
Table 3 – Mobile market share of subscribers – 2008 - 2018
Table 4 – Mobile network traffic – 2010 - 2018
Table 5 – Mobile market revenue – 2012 - 2018
Table 6 – Total prepaid users – 2002 - 2018
Table 7 – HT mobile prepaid subscribers – 2001 - 2018
Table 8 – A1 Croatia prepaid subscribers – 2004 - 2018
Table 9 – M2M connections – 2017 - 2018
Table 10 – A1 Croatia M2M connections – 2016 - 2018
Table 11 – Total SMS and MMS messages sent – 2003 - 2018
Table 12 – Mobile broadband subscribers and penetration – 2012 - 2018
Table 13 – Dedicated mobile broadband subscribers – 2007 - 2018
Table 14 – A1 Croatia mobile broadband subscribers – 2008 - 2018
Table 15 – Accumulated and annual mobile ported numbers – 2006 - 2018
Table 16 – European roaming charges – 2007 – 2016
Table 17 – European data roaming charges – 2014 - 2017
Table 18 – HT mobile revenue (€) – 2004 - 2018
Table 19 – HT Group mobile revenue (HRK) – 2012 - 2018
Table 20 – HT mobile annualised ARPU – 2004 - 2018
Table 21 – HT mobile customers – 2007 - 2018
Table 22 – A1 Croatia prepaid, postpaid and blended monthly ARPU – 2004 - 2018
Table 23 – A1 Croatia Minutes of Use (MOU) – 2007 - 2018
Table 24 – A1 Croatia subscribers – 2007 - 2018
Table 25 – Tele2 Croatia financial data – 2007 - 2018
Table 26 – Tele2 revenue by type – 2015 - 2018
Table 27 – Tele2 subscribers – 2007 - 2018