Telekom Austria’s acquisition of the Croatian operator B.net is one of the biggest deals in Central and Eastern Europe’s cable industry so far this year.
It is also quite timely, coming only a month after the Austrian company failed in its bid to buy the Serbian incumbent telco Telekom Srbija.
B.net has since its formation in 2007 developed into one of the top two providers of pay-TV services in Croatia, going head-to-head with Deutsche Telekom-backed T-HT, which operates the region’s most successful IPTV operation (MAXtv) and – through a subsidiary – another IPTV operation named Iskon TV.
The last quarter of 2010 was particularly significant for B.net, which besides declaring itself to be the first fully profitable alternative telco in Croatia effectively took over the DTH platform Total TV.
The latter has since been renamed B.net Total TV and integrated into B.net’s activities. However, it continues to be jointly run with Serbia Broadband (SBB), which also operates Total TV in its home market, as well as Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Slovenia.
Telekom Austria sees the acquisition of B.net as part of an overall strategy of converging its fixed net and mobile interests, not just in Austria but also other countries. It began with the creation of A1 Telekom Austria in July 2010 and continued later in the year with the acquisition of Bulgarian cable operators Spectrum Net and Megalan Network by its subsidiary Mobiltel.
Telekom Austria’s Croatian subsidiary Vipnet, through which the B.net deal has been conducted, now stands to benefit from the strategy and become one of the leading providers of converged services in the Croatian market.
The Austrian company is understandably bullish about the prospects for B.net’s pay-TV and fixed broadband products, which it believes will grow by an average annual rate of 10.8%. What is certain is that its entrance into Croatia will shake up the market and make it even more competitive than it is at present.
