Bulgarian ISPs Revenues Rise 9.8% in 2012, Fiber-Optic with 42% Market Share

The revenues from Internet access and data transfer services in Bulgaria increased by 9.78% to 346.96 million levs ($234 million/177.4 million euro) in 2012 on the backdrop of a contraction on the broader electronic communications market, the country’s communications regulator, CRC, said in a report.

The total number of Internet subscribers in Bulgaria, a market of around 7.3 million, rose by 18.7% to 1.9 million users at the end of 2012, the report issued earlier this month said.

The market registered last year a jump of 68% in mobile Internet users, growth in bundled services subscriptions and a dynamic transition to fiber-optic networks.

Fiber-optic networks increased their market share in terms of subscribers by 5.9 percentage points to 42% last year at the expense of ADSL and LAN networks that have 22.4% and 20.8%, respectively, of the market.

In 2012, more than 54% of Bulgarian Internet users had access to Internet speeds of 20 Mbps while a further 34.4% used internet with speeds of 30-99 Mbps.