The Ukrainians have become more active users of telecommunications: their consuming of IT - services and telecommunications per person has grown by more than a quarter and now equals UAH 95.

During January - March 2008 the income of the ICT market participants of all property categories has formed UAH 14.3 billion, which by 25.7% exceeds the activities of the similar period in 2007.  The amount of income from selling services to the consumers has made up UAH 4.4 billion. IT-service and telecommunications consumption per person in Ukraine has grown by more than 25% and have mounted to nearly UAH 95 (appr. USD 20).

The market participants of state owned proprietorship and those with over 50% state-owned shares have gained 18% of total income. The tendency of their role decrease is caused by much slower (more than 6 times) tempo of income growth – compared with private owned market participants. It is conditioned both by a significant role of services provided for state-regulated prices, and by a little part of services using innovative technologies.

The most dynamic income growth is observed in informatization sphere (56%), IP-communications (48%),  Internet access (50%), mail services (43.7%), mobile telecommunications (28%). While the income from fixed telephone communications amounts only to 2%.

The most significant market are: mobile telecommunications – 47.2%, ІТ-services, hard and software selling and computer telecommunications – 28.2%, and fixed telephone communications– 17.2%.

In the first quarter of 2008 communication operators of all property categories have developed UAH 2.7 billion of capital investments.

The amount of capital investments directed by communication operators of all types of proprietorship into the ICT development has made up about UAH 2.7 billion, 97% of which were their own costs, and 3% were the foreign investors’ funds and bank loans.

State owned operators invested around UAH 10 million in the network development and major repairs, which is twice as much as in Q1 2007, and particularly 75% was their own costs and 25% taken as bank loans in domestic banks.

Mobile telecommunications penetration is over 4 times more than that of fixed telephone communications.  

Telecommunication sphere.

The level of mobile communication penetration has made up to 119.3%. It is over 4.3 times more than the level of fixed telephone communications provision. National communication operator Ukrtelecom continues the construction of 3GUMTS telecommunications network (TM Utel).

The number of CDMA telecommunication subscribers is continuously increasing coming up to 490 000 today.

Ukrtelecom has constructed and put into operation over 58 000 automatic exchange numbers, which is nearly twice as numerous as the result of the similar period last year. Since the beginning of 2008 Ukrtelecom has installed 60 000 basic telephone connections, particularly almost 6 000 for welfare recipients. The density of basic telephones in Ukraine is 27.8 per 100 people.

Ukrtelecom has constructed and put into operation 340 km of fiber-optic telecommunication lines, which is by 1.8 more than in the first quarter of 2007.

According to the latest information, there are about 3,4 million cable television subscribers. That is 18.7% households use cable television (a year ago it made up17.8%). The highest percentage of cable TV use is in Sevastopol, Kyiv, as well as in Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Lviv, Poltava and Lugansk regions.

The use of Internet services in Ukraine is 17.8 per 100 people

Informatization sphere.  

The construction of modern fiber-optic telecommunication lines with the introduction of CWDM and DWDM technologies, the development of broadband access networks (currently is 17.8 per 100 people) are among the priority directions of telecommunication networks development.

During the first quarter of this year Wi-Fi showed continuous growth (there are 195 access points today). This favored the opportunities of broadband data transmission networks of and the development of wireless access segment in public places (hotels, airports, exhibition centers, cafés, educational institutions etc.) in the biggest cities and region centers of Ukraine.

The number of broadband Internet access users is growing: the number constitutes around 1200 000 users.

Telecommunication network development, latest technologies introduction and the increase in the level of the population’s paying capacity are the important factors for the growth of Internet-users number. By April 1, 2008 the number of active Internet-users was 17.8 per 100 people, while at the beginning of the year this figure was 12.6.

The distribution of Internet-users according to the regions is uneven. The leading position is occupied by Kyiv - 58% of total users’ number. Then, in descending order – Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Lviv, the Crimea and Zaporizhzhya (their total share makes up to 31%). All the other regions get only 11 %.

The number of web-sites is 41 500.The number of real hosts in the national domain is 215500, the number of active domains in the Ukrainian segment of the Internet is 89200.

Prepared by analytic department of EEBC Telecom&Broadcasting