Serbia
Vip mobile
In November 2006 the Telekom Austria Group was the winning bidder for the GSM 900/1800 and UMTS license for the territory of the Republic of Serbia, offered in a tender. Vip mobile, the third mobile communication provider in the Republic of Serbia was launched in July 2007, six months after granting the licence.
Attractive offers for all customer segments enabled Vip mobile to benefit from the rapid growth of the Serbian market and significantly expand its subscriber base. In a year-on-year comparison the number of customers rose by 27.1% to 1.2 million in 2009, bringing market share to 12.0%.
Following the cancellation of inactive SIM cards from the customer base, the mobile penetration rate declined to 128.4%.
Vip mobile continued to expand its network infrastructure in 2009 and also
introduced several product innovations such as the BlackBerry Storm phone.
In response to the economic crisis the government introduced a 10% levy on selected revenues from mobile communication. Although further progress was made in 2009, the Serbian mobile communications market is still not completely deregulated.
