Growth in Latvia’s mobile communications market is slowing down, with current growth driven mainly by SIM card installations in various devices rather than by new users, Valdis Vancovičs, Chairman of the Board of Tele2, told LETA in an interview.

“Of course, there are innovations and developments, but the pace is not the same as it was 15 or 20 years ago, when the industry was growing very rapidly. The amount of data consumed in mobile operators’ networks is increasing more slowly. It used to grow by around 50 – 60 percent a year, especially rapidly with the arrival of 4G. Now it is growing by about 20 – 25 percent annually,” said Vancovičs.

Nevertheless, mobile operators are currently upgrading their networks and will likely complete the nationwide roll-out of 5G next year.

Vancovičs also noted that Latvia’s population is very active in using mobile services and that Latvian networks are among the busiest in Europe, with people using both home data connections and various content services.

This, in turn, means that operators – even if technologies remain the same – must continuously expand capacity, increase the number of base stations, and improve the capacity of transmission networks.

As reported, Tele2 closed 2024 with a turnover of EUR 179.991 million, up 1.5 percent from a year earlier, while the company’s profit rose 13.5 percent year-on-year to EUR 52.923 million.

Tele2 was established in 1995 with a share capital of EUR 3.486 million. The company’s sole owner is Sweden’s Tele2 Sverige.

Source: BNS

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