Telekom Austria remains interested in acquiring its Serbian counterpart and is waiting for a tender to be announced.
However, according to an unnamed source, quoted by the news agencies APA (Austria) and Tanjug (Serbia), its interest is limited as Telekom Austria already has a presence in Serbia through the mobile operator VIP.
The latter currently has one-fifth share of the Serbian market.
Given that Telekom Austria has long followed a strategy in which it is present of providing fixed telephony – Bulgaria, Croatia and more recently Macedonia – industry observers believe Telekom Srbija would be an excellent fit for its business in Serbia.
Significantly, Telekom Austria lodged a bid of €1.1 billion for a 51% stake in Telekom Srbija in 2011.
This was nevertheless rejected, with the government asking for €1.4 billion.