TIRANA (Albania), February 20 (SeeNews) – Albania's competition authority said it has launched a preliminary investigation into suspected restriction of competition by the three mobile telecommunications operators in the country.
The competition authority will look into a suspected illegal agreement between Vodafone Albania, Telekom Albania and Albtelecom to increase prices for their prepaid packages as well as the minimum value for recharge between January 30- February 11, it said in a statement earlier this week.
In a separate statement, the authority ordered the suspension of all price hikes by the mobile operators until the conclusion of the investigation.
The number of active mobile users in Albania fell by 3.1% year-on-year to 2.52 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, the country’s electronic and postal communication authority, AKEP, said in a quarterly sector report.
Vodafone Albania was the market leader with 1.25 million active mobile users (down 1.6%), followed by Telekom Albania with 852,124 (down 5.7%) and Albtelecom with 417,061 (down 2.4%).