All three mobile service providers in Bulgaria – A1, Vivacom, and Yettel – have seen a continued decline in customer numbers, according to the 2024 annual report of the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC), as cited by BNR.
As of the end of last year, the total number of mobile subscribers across the three operators stood at 7,978,000. This marks a 0.4% decrease compared to 2023. The year before, the reduction was more noticeable – 0.6% among subscribers with contract plans and 1% among users relying on prepaid SIM cards. Despite the drop in user numbers, the volume of SMS sent remains robust, with over 425 million text messages transmitted by Bulgarian users in 2024.
In financial terms, overall sector revenues also declined, even though all three operators adjusted their prices upward in response to inflation. The CRC attributes the revenue drop primarily to lower wholesale prices for terminating mobile voice calls originating from EU and European Economic Area countries – a change driven by regulatory measures at the European level.
The downward trend extends to landline services as well. Fixed-line telephony continues to lose relevance, with combined revenue from landline voice services dropping to BGN 60 million in 2024 – a 14% year-on-year decrease for the three telecom providers.