Bulgaria's mobile penetration reaches 72%

Ericsson ConsumerLab conducted research among Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian and Serbian users on their current usage of internet and telephone technologies for the period 2006/07.

An extract from Ericsson's Bulgaria market research findings shows that 72 per cent of Bulgarians owned a mobile phone, which was one per cent lower than the number in Serbia, and four per cent more than the number of cellular telephones used by the population in Romania. In Bulgaria, the minutes of daily usage on a mobile phone were the lowest among all of countries questioned - 16 minutes for personal and work calls, total, while the total global usage amounted to 34. Bulgarians also spent the least time speaking on their fixed telephone lines - 13 minutes a day, followed by Japan with 16 and China with 19. Ericsson also found out that in Bulgaria, almost every second phone call generated from home was done on a mobile phone.

The internet users questioned showed strong interest in enriched communications and information society services, such as e-government and e-health.

More than the half of the Bulgarian consumers who had or actively planned to acquire a broad-band internet connection were interested in an all-in-one package, which indicated strong potential for eventual bundled service offerings.

The real mobile penetration was Bulgaria is 72 per cent (among the population between 15-69 years of age), giving another potential for growth.

SMS usage was currently below the global average and was also the lowest in the region. This fact also indicated potential for further growth.

Among Bulgarian consumers, the price, coverage and capacity were the main factors in choosing a mobile operator.

In the country, only three per cent of working people had their mobile phone bills paid fully or partly by their employer.

These results were released following 1500 consumer interviews in Bulgaria with people at aged between 15 and 69, a representative sample of 74 per cent of the total population.

The reason holding the number one place for choosing a mobile phone service provider among Bulgarians was good geographic coverage, followed by price and good network capacity and speech quality.

Bulgarians were least interested in a wide range of services and in special roaming tariffs when going abroad.

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Bulgaria's mobile market has experienced significant changes which are indicative of an evolving market. The launch of services by the country's third GSM operator does not bode well for the two pre-existing operators, given that the mobile voice market is saturated and the new entrant has announced plans to acquire a significant market share. Consequently, the focus has shifted from revenue growth through new subscribers towards increasing ARPU levels by encouraging uptake of postpaid services and usage of mobile data and content. Non-SMS and MMS data usage generates an almost insignificant amount of revenue indicating significant growth potential. To this end, both of the established mobile operators have launched 3G services and sophisticated mobile content platforms (Vodafone Live! and i-mode). This report presents a concise overview of Bulgaria's mobile market, offering a variety of insightful statistics, covering the major operators, market developments and services offered.

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The mobile phone network in Bulgaria is extensive and almost the whole country has mobile phone reception.

Areas with poor or no reception are usually high in mountains or in remote areas. There are three mobile phone service providers: Globul (www.globul.bg/en ), Mtel (www.mtel.bg ), Vivatel (www.vivatel.bg/en ), owned by BTC.

As in most countries, buying a mobile phone can involve a dizzying array of choices between not only the network and the option of a contract or a ‘pay-as-you-talk’ system, but also a wide range of tariffs covering connection fees, monthly subscriptions, insurance and call charges.

If you want to use a foreign mobile in Bulgaria, you can buy a SIM card that will give you a Bulgarian mobile number and allow you to make and receive calls and text messages, although you may need to get your phone ‘unlocked’ from the network in your home country (this can be done cheaply at most mobile phone shops).

The most popular SIM card is from Mtel, which is cheap and reliable for local calls (although all cards are expensive for international calls).

SURVIVAL TIP Unless you absolutely have to, don’t use your mobile phone from an overseas network to make calls in Bulgaria, as the cost will be
astronomical.

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