The economic news of the day in Serbia is undoubtedly a deal United groups and companies e& PPF Telecom on the sale of SBB for 825 million euros. This agreement changes the ownership of the leading internet and media content distribution operator in the country.
SBB is the second largest internet operator in Serbia, according to the latest available data from the Republic Telecommunications Agency (RATEL), from the third quarter of last year.
SBB had a share of 26,8 percent in the fixed broadband Internet market, and was second behind Telekom Serbia, with a market share of 56,7 percent in relation to the total number of subscribers. writes the New Economy.
Internet access has 2,19 million subscribers
Fixed broadband Internet access in 2024 had 2,19 million subscribers.
Apart from Telekom and SBB, RATEL singled out Yettel, Orion telecom, Sat-Trakt, Astra telecom, Jotel, BeotelNet-ISP, Krajnaliฤ komunikacije and Yunet International as leading operators.
But the market share of these operators is significantly smaller compared to Telekom and SBB, according to RATEL's market review. Thus, the "third-ranked" Yettel has a share of only 5,2 percent of the number of subscribers.
SBB is also the second largest media content distribution operator in Serbia, with a 37,6 percent market share in the third quarter of 2024.
The first, of course, is again Telekom Srbija, with a market share of 55 percent according to the number of subscribers.
The total number of subscribers to the media content distribution service in the third quarter of 2024 was 2,43 million.
In addition to Telekom and SBB, the companies Yettel and Sat-Trakt can also be singled out, and these operators together occupy 97,8 percent of the media content distribution market.
SBB is also second in the country in terms of the number of fixed telephony subscribers.
Stable business of SBB
The business of this company looks stable when looking at the business results from 2020 to 2023.
According to the data from the financial reports, SBB ended the year 2023 (the last one for which there is data) with 30,5 billion dinars in operating income and 3,8 billion dinars in net profit.
This is similar to the results achieved in the previous three years.
On the other hand, SBB is not the only thing that United sold.
Telekom reached an agreement on the purchase of 100 percent of the shares in Eon TV International Ltd (the holding company of NetTV Plus companies), direct-to-home (DTH) operations within EoNSat and Total TV in Serbia and North Macedonia, as well as the purchase of certain rights, licenses and other assets related to Sportklub channels for the Western Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia), directly or indirectly, from United Group. Telekom Srbija agreed to pay 652 million euros for these operations.
United Group will continue to own and manage its media houses in Serbia, including N1 and Nova. These channels will remain available on SBB's fixed network, and will also be offered to Yettel users.
This is because the Czech PPF group owns Yettel, while e& is actually Etisalat from the United Arab Emirates.
The United Group operates in eight countries and in September 2024 reported an operating income of 2,9 billion euros in the previous 12 months.
