Austria
Telekom Austria and mobilkom austria are market leaders on the Austrian telecommunications market.
Fixed Net Segment
The fixed net segment of the Telekom Austria Group is exposed to fierce competition in several respects. Traditional voice telephony must sustain its position against the many alternative fixed net and mobile communications providers. With regard to Internet access mobile broadband is increasing the pressure. In this challenging environment the fixed net segment focuses on safeguarding fixed access lines through innovative products such as aonTV and aonAlarmServices. In the 4th quarter 2007 the fixed net segment successfully launched the product bundle “KombiPaket” (Combi Package). This offer comprises fixed net, Internet and up to 3 SIM cards.
Thanks to these efforts and due to the consolidation of eTel, in 2007 the voice telephony market share expanded to 59.9 %. The number of broadband subscribers rose to 750,700 (including wholesale customers).
In 2007, revenues in the fixed net segment increased slightly by 0.6% to EUR 2,133.0 million. Higher earnings from wholesale voice telephony & Internet, data & IT solutions and Internet access & media, as well as the consolidation from eTel were able to compensate for the lower earnings from voice telephony.
Mobile Communications Segment
In an international comparison the Austrian mobile communications market is highly competitive. 2007 was marked by a number of regulatory measures, such as the extensive EU regulation of roaming tariffs for voice telephony as well as the asymmetrically regulated domestic mobile termination rates. With four network operators, a mobile virtual network operator, several service providers (such as YESSS!) as well as resellers and pre-selection providers which have specialized in certain areas (e.g. international telephony or broadband), the Austrian mobile communications market is extremely dynamic. At the end of 2007, mobile phone penetration in Austria amounted to 118.3 %, a rise of 4.1 percentage points compared to the previous year. The decisive factor for this growth was primarily the trend to second and third access lines as well as the strong sales of mobile broadband.
Despite these difficult conditions, thanks to innovative products and services and successful customer retention measures, mobilkom austria started 2008 with an excellent operating performance.
Due to mobile broadband, which established itself even more in 2007, and attractive A1 voice tariffs, mobilkom austria succeeded in expanding its market share by 1.6 percent to 40.3 %.
In 2007 mobilkom austria increased its subscriber base by 9.1 % to almost 4 million customers. New growth in net accesses amounted to 329,000, whereby the share of contract customers rose from 60.8 % to 66.3 %.
