A1 Bulgaria

A1 Bulgaria was founded in March 1994 but was not launched commercially until September 1995 (as Citron).[2]

In 2001, M-Tel (the brand then) launched its prepayment sim cards which allowed customers to purchase credits prior to calling friends. This proved to be a great success and saw the number of customers using their network increase dramatically.

The company had a market share of about 58% and 3,000,000 clients in September 2004. On 14 September 2006 M-Tel reached 4,000,000 clients. As of May 2006 the company has 4,400,000 subscribers and its market share fell to 51.1%. Its contract customers increased to 1.7 mln, while the profit per customer dropped to 9.9 euros for Q1 2007.[3]

The operator has been owned by Telekom Austria Group since July 2005, when it was acquired for up to €1.6 billion in one of Central and Eastern Europe's largest deals and one of the largest foreign investments in Austria. Mobiltel was the first Bulgarian operator to offer EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, HSPA+ and second to offer LTE services to its clients, with video telephony services being available since 6 March 2006 in the capital Sofia and since mid-July 2006 throughout the Bulgarian Black Sea resorts.[4]

The company was the official sponsor of Bulgarian football club PFC Levski Sofia. Since 2005, the company also organizes the strong annual M-Tel Masters chess tournament, which is attended by six of the world's best International Grandmasters.

Despite the difficult economic environment affecting the entire IT and Telco industry in Bulgaria, Mobiltel's performance remains stable with a customer base of 5.3 million. The postpaid subscribers increased from 61% to roughly 66%. Mobiltel's market share by end Q1/2011 stays at 49.3%.

The Mtel network uses the access code 88. Until 2003, it also used the codes 89 and 87, which had been added as the network had expanded. In mid-2003, however, mobile numbers in Bulgaria increased by one digit and the M-Тel network code returned to being 88 only.

Mobiltel owns Loop, the largest virtual mobile operator operating in Bulgaria, specially designed for young customers. In 2011 Mtel created pre-paid service for cheap telephone calls, SMS and mobile Internet bob, which is available in Austria and Slovenia too.

In 2012 M-tel was rebranded with a new logo, and the dash in the name was removed leaving Mtel (Мтел) as shown in the new logo.

On 28 July 2015, Mtel and Max signed a contract for national roaming. This is the first agreement for sharing networks in the Bulgarian telecom market.

On 29 July 2015, Mobiltel said has agreed to buy cable TV and internet service provider Blizoo. On 18 September 2015, CPC gave green light of the deal and the merger was done by the end of the year.

On 15 September 2016, Mtel became the official sponsor of the most successful Bulgarian football club CSKA Sofia. From 2016 to 2017 season Mtel became the team's principal shirt sponsor.

On 14 January 2017 Mtel launched its own pay television sports pack – MAX Sport (then under the brand Mtel Sport), consisting of two TV channels.[5]

As of 22 May 2018, the company is operating under the A1 brand.

A1 has currently deployed a few different mobile networks. The company was first to launch GSM, GPRS, HSPA, HSPA+ and test LTE in Bulgaria. They also have fiber optic internet offered in most large cities (thanks to recent acquisition of former blizoo). In 2012 A1 (Formerly Mtel) announced DTH. As of 2016 depending on a viewer's location A1 can offer to IPTV (marketed as interactive television), CATV (former blizoo), HSPA, HSPA+, LTE and fiber internet (up to 1 Gbit/s).

• Official website (in Bulgarian)
• Official website