BELGRADE (Serbia), March 10 (SeeNews) – Serbia’s incumbent telecoms operator Telekom Srbija recorded a profit of 15 billion dinars ($204.7 million/150.3 million euro) in 2009 and plans to invest about 20 billion dinars in infrastructure this year, local broadcaster b92 (www.b92.net) reported on Wednesday, quoting the company’s head of commercial operations, Vladimir Lucic.
It was not immediately clear if the profit figure refers to net or gross earnings or whether it covers the parent company alone or the whole Telekom Srbija group.
In 2008, Telekom Srbija posted a consolidated net profit of 9.5 billion dinars.
The telecoms company plans to double the number of its ADSL users to about 700,000 this year, b92 quoted Lucic as saying.
Telekom Srbija had over 3.0 million landline subscribers in January, but this division, unlike its mobile arm, MTS, is a loss-maker, he added.
MTS, which controls some 70% of the domestic wireless services market, is expected to add 200,000 new subscribers by the end of 2010 to the more than 6.0 million it had in January.
The number of MTS subscribers with mobile Internet plans should increase by 100,000 in 2010 and should reach 2.0 million by the end of 2014, the company executive said, giving no comparison figure.
MTS competes with the local arm of Norway's Telenor and with VIP mobile, a unit of Telekom Austria.
Telekom Srbija is the majority owner of the second-largest telecoms company in neighbouring Bosnia, Telekom Srpske, which, in turn, owns 100% of mobile operator m:tel in Serbia’s southern neighbour Montenegro.
Telenor was recently issued a permit to operate Serbia's second landline system.
(1 euro=99.8227 Serbian dinars)
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