Page 20 - bne_Tech_0809_2018

Telecom
August/September 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
Bosnian BH Telecom's net profit falls 26% y/y to €12.2mn
Bosnia & Herzegovina’s largest telecom
operator BH Telecom said its net profit totalled BAM23.92mn (€12.2mn) in the first half of 2018. According to bne IntelliNews calculations, the net profit sank 26% y/y.
BH Telecom is one of two state-owned telecoms, along with HT Mostar, which should be privatised this year. This is one of the key requirements set by the International Monetary Fund in order to continue extending tranches under a three-year loan deal with Bosnia.
Montenegro’s fixed-line subscribers rise 9.5% y/y
The number of fixed-line telephony users in Mon- tenegro increased by 9.5% y/y to 163,300 at end- June, according to data from the telecommunica- tions agency (EKIP).
In recent years, the number of fixed-line subscrib- ers has been mainly declining, but this trend has changed in the past several months.
According to EKIP, Crnogorski Telekom, which is a unit of Deutsche Telecom, held a 71.75% share of the fixed telephony market. The local arm of Tel- ekom Srbija, M:tel, which provides fixed telephony via WiMAX technology, had 20.41%, and the two
BH Telecom’s operating income fell 5.5% y/y to BAM232.4mn, while operating costs moved down 3.9% y/y to BAM208.8mn.
BH Telecom, which is the largest mobile operator in Bosnia, is 90%-owned by the government of the Bosnian Federation, while the remainder belongs to smaller shareholders. The operator’s competitors in Bosnia are Telekom Srpske, which is controlled by Serbia's state-owned Telekom Srbija, and HT Mostar.
new players on the fixed-line telephony market — Telemach and Telenor (which was acquired by Czech investment group PPF in March 2018 as part of Telenor’s decision to sell its business in CEE) — had 6.69% and 1.15% shares respectively.
Households accounted for 86.24% of all fixed-line users at end-June and the balance was accounted for by the business sector.
The total number of Montenegrin Integrated Ser- vices Digital Network (ISDN) connections totalled 3,584 at end-June, compared to 3,728 a year ago.