The last two years have been particularly significant for the Serbian incumbent Telekom Srbija.
In an interview with the local publication Blic earlier this month, CEO Pedrag Culibrk revealed that preliminary figures for 2019 show that its income amounted to RSD91 billion (€772 million), or 3-4% more than the previous year.
Moreover, this figure excluded Supernova, a new brand that it has recently launched in its home market.
Telekom Srbija has been in expansive mode since 2018 and at the end of that year gave a debut to a new DTH service named m:Sat TV. Culibrk said that it has already secured around 50,000 subscribers in Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro, the three markets it is present in.
Culibrk also discussed the acquisition spree that the company embarked on towards the end of 2018, when it bought the Serbian cable operator Kopernikus, which had over 200,000 subscribers. It was part of what was termed the “million plus’ strategy, which has already been achieved with Telekom Srbija and its companies in the three countries now claiming a combined total of 1.1 million multimedia customers. Indeed, the company gained half a million such customers in the last six months alone.
Although Culibrk was keen to emphasise the dramatic progress the telco has made in becoming a leader in 4G, he made clear that its future lies in the provision of multimedia services. Furthermore, he said that it will continue to invest in content, both for the Arena Sport channel and other services.
Significantly, Culibrk also dismissed allegations that its acquisitions of cable operators were not subject to government control. He maintained the company hid nothing, respected everything and regarded the comments as malicious.
