The rising stars of the Greek (and not only)
telecommunications market mainly include
Chinese-based manufacturers (Huawei, ZTE),
which are now wrestling market shares away
from established European players (Ericsson,
Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent etc.). However,
the newcomers’ sales are far from replacing the
sales of the older players that back away from the
market. Apart from cutbacks in the providers’
investment plans, this trend is also aggravated by
technological advances that lead to rapid
decreases in the cost of telecommunication
equipment.
The new challenge
However, all crises present opportunities. Seeing
their conventional activities shrink, telecom oper-
ators are now focusing on new types of services.
These include subscription-based television serv-
ices, which are being exclusively provided by
telecommunication service providers. In mid-
2008, Forthnet acquired Nova, the digital satellite
television platform, increasing its turnover by
more than double. The Group is presently report-
ing turnover of €400 million per year, of which
only 50% come from the provision of telecom
services.
OTE, on the other hand, has been deploying
competitive services for the past 18 months, offer-
ing various IP TV packages to subscribers. OTE
is marketing these packages under the “Conn-X
TV” brand, and has attracted almost 50,000 sub-
scribers up to now. At the same time, the incum-
bent is also preparing the provision of subscrip-
tion-based television services via the Hellasat
satellite. The company aims at launching these
services in 2011, offering High Definition TV.
Market observers believe that these new sub-
scription-based services will find their way to the
market, as Greek consumers will shift towards
home entertainment because of the crisis. This
had not been achieved up to now, as subscrip-
tion-based TV services had little appeal to the
Greek public. It is also estimated that only 12% of
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