Galt & Taggart published a report on the Telecommunication Sector in Georgia. Telecom sector revenue was up 18.4% y/y to GEL 648.4mn in 1H23, mostly fueled by the mobile segment.
According to the document, additional 0.32mn users subscribed to mobile operators over 2022-1H23, boosted by migrants and tourism recovery, totaling 5.4mn subscribers. Mobile revenues have been growing since 2021, driven by subscriber growth and removed tariff restrictions since Jul-21.
Mobile data traffic is the main driver of growth, skyrocketing 7 times due to growth of subscribers and data usage per user over 2019-1H23.
Additional 90k users subscribed for fixed broadband over 2022-1H23, boosted by real estate sales and growing availability in the regions. Growth continued in 1H23 and reached 1.06mn (+6.4% y/y) users. Fixed broadband revenues have been steadily growing over 2018-22, driven by growth of subscribers and tariffs.
Pay-TV subscribers were down -0.4% y/y to 0.7mn subscribers in 1H23, driven by Magticom abandoning satellite TV from Jan-23 and growing popularity of streaming services. Pay-TV segment revenues still growing thanks to increasing tariffs and service bundling with fixed broadband services.
