Cyprus - Telecoms Infrastructure, Operators, Regulations - Statistics and Analyses

Cyprus - Telecoms Infrastructure, Operators, Regulations - Statistics and Analyses

Despite the liberalisation of Cyprus's telecom sector, the market overall continues to be dominated by the incumbent, Cyta, which is still fully-owned by the state though the government continues to press for a sale of a minority stake in a bid to arrest the continuing decline in the operator's market share. As such, these plans (which form part of the 2019 budget) have rekindled schemes to privatise Cyta dating to 2013 as part of a wider financial bailout package.

Improved regulatory conditions, particularly in relation to network interconnection and access, has given competing operators the confidence to invest in network infrastructure, to make use of unbundled local loops and to launch competing services. The mobile sector has secured some competition from the cableco Cablenet which launched services in 2017, though the operator only has a small market share.

This report introduces the key aspects of Cyprus's fixed-line telecoms market, outlining the regulatory environment and providing updated operational and financial data on the major operators. Cyprus is a divided island with most of the information in this report concerned only with the Greek Cypriot area.

Key developments:

MTN Group sells Cypriot unit to Monaco Telecom for 260 million;
Quantum Cable contracts for new submarine cable linking to Greece and Israel;
Telecom Italy Sparkle and Cyta complete the Kimonas cable subsystem linking Cyprus with Crete;
Cytas USO obligations extended;
Cyta upgrades transmission capacity on the TE-North Cable System to 500Gb/s;
PrimeTel lands HAWK submarine cable updates;
Report update includes the regulators market data to June 2018, operators statistical data updates, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Cyta, MTN Cyprus, PrimeTel