• The increasing number of mobile network subscribers is gradually making mobile connections the preferred way of making calls, especially outdoors. On the other hand, the use of public card phones is declining and the use of token and coin payphones has shrunk even more. (Figure 2).

FIGURE 2. MOST FREQUENTLY USED TELEPHONES OUTSIDE THE HOME (OUTDOORS)

Base: All respondents (January 2002 N=1134; May 2003 N=1077)

• Although mobile phones are no doubt an easy and convenient means of communication, they are still inaccessible to most Bulgarians owing to the high prices of the services and the phones themselves. This was cited as one of the chief reasons for 87.8% of the respondents who do not own a mobile phone and don’t intend to get one in the coming six months. Among those who do have such plans, most have not decided which mobile phone operator they will subscribe to. In turn this indicates that the cellular services market is not only developing rapidly, but also offers a great potential and opportunities for a flexible marketing policy.
• The rising prices of the services provided by the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC) are gradually shortening the distance between fixed and mobile phones and may in the future lead to a loss of customers in favor of mobile phone subscribers.

The full report on Telephone Services Market in Bulgaria, which can be purchased from Vitosha Research, contains detailed information about the following market characteristics:

• Assessment of the telephone services market in this country;
• Use of various types of phones
  • Use rates for different types of phones – fixed, mobile, public payphones, Internet telephony;
  • Demographic profiles of the users of the different types of phones;
  • Use of the different types of phones to make local, intercity, and international calls;
  • Inclination to stop using a fixed phone and switch to a mobile one instead – reasons and factors.
• Mobile phone use and market shares of mobile network operators
  • Mobile phone penetration – number of personal mobile phones and mobile phones per household;
  • Market share of mobile operators in this country – among the households in general and among the respondents themselves;
  • Share of the potential mobile network subscribers;
  • Customer loyalty to the network operators – share of users leaving the operators, inclination to stop using the services of an operator and attitudes to switching operators;
  • Reasons why customers switch to a different operator or stop using the services of a mobile network operator;
  • Likelihood of switching / leaving the current network operator in the next six months;
  • Use of prepaid mobile phone cards;
• Use of public payphones and prepaid long-distance calling cards
  • Use rates for different types of public payphones – coin and phone-card public telephones, telephones in the post offices;
  • Reasons for the choice of a particular type of public payphone;
  • Phone card preferences: market shares, reasons for using the different types of phone-card systems;
  • Points of purchase of phone cards – buying habits and purchasing frequency;
  • Use of prepaid long-distance calling cards.