site.btaPrice Rises for Mobile Customers Spark Heated Discussion, Socialist Party Alerts Competition and Communications Watchdogs

Mobile operators in Bulgaria have announced, or are considering, a price increase from February. This will be the third price hike in the last three years, with inflation and higher wage and rent costs cited as the reason.

A single annual price rise is part of the terms and conditions of the contracts with mobile customers, who cannot cancel a contract on the basis of the higher price without paying a penalty of up to three monthly fees.

The operators have all taken a different approach. Vivacom was the first to notify customers of a 4.7% rise in the monthly price of some of its basic and additional services. Yettel has announced a 9.5% increase, equal to the annual average Consumer Price Index for 2023 announced by the National Statistical Institute. The prices of prepaid services and subscription plans for people with disabilities, among others, will remain unchanged. M1 is yet to analyse the impact of inflation on its business. 

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) has asked the Commission on Protection of Competition to rule on whether mobile operators applying the same clauses create a barrier to free competition, BSP leader Korneliya Ninova told reporters in Parliament on Friday.

The Socialist Party has also alerted the Communications Regulation Commission, which approves the general terms and conditions of the mobile operators' contracts, about the price hike. Ninova said the Socialists want the terms of the contracts to be revised.

Earlier in the day, taking a question from Ninova about the government's steps towards curbing what the BSP leader said was  abuse of monopoly power, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said: "We will talk with the mobile operators' managers to suggest that this is a bad economic practice and it is not in their best interest to maintain it." He stressed, however, that the government has no right to intervene directly in contractual relations between businesses and customers.

The competition protection watchdog is meeting on Monday to discuss the price rise for mobile customers.