Serbia’s information and communication sector remained one of the strongest parts of the country’s non-financial business economy in the first quarter of 2026, with operating income growing faster than the broader corporate sector, although the latest data also point to a sharper rise in costs and a more demanding margin environment.
Preliminary data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia show that operating income in the country’s non-financial business economy increased by 6.4% year on year in the first quarter. Within that wider picture, the information and communication sector delivered a stronger result, with operating income rising by 11.4% compared with the same period of 2025. The performance confirms the sector’s continuing role as one of Serbia’s most resilient growth engines, supported by software, digital services, telecommunications, wholesale ICT equipment, data processing and related activities.
The stronger top-line performance came with a clear caveat. Operating costs in the overall non-financial business economy increased by 5.4% year on year, while costs in the information and communication sector rose by 12.5%. That means cost growth in ICT outpaced revenue growth, a signal that the sector is still expanding but is doing so in an environment of higher wage pressure, technology procurement costs, infrastructure spending and service-delivery expenses.
The gap is important. Serbia’s ICT sector has often been treated as a high-margin, export-oriented segment of the economy, particularly because of the strength of software development, outsourcing, digital engineering and business services linked to foreign clients. The first-quarter figures suggest that revenue momentum remains intact, but the profitability story is becoming more nuanced. Faster growth in costs than income does not undermine the sector’s strategic value, but it does show that expansion is no longer cost-light. Labour, equipment, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data hosting, telecom network investment and imported technology inputs are all becoming more material in the sector’s operating structure.
Within the ICT sector, services continue to dominate. They accounted for 93.8% of operating income and 93.2% of operating costs in the first quarter. Manufacturing activities within ICT represented a much smaller share, with 6.2% of operating income and 6.8% of operating costs. This confirms that Serbia’s ICT economy remains overwhelmingly service-led rather than hardware-led, with value creation concentrated in software, telecoms, programming, consulting, equipment distribution, hosting and digital platforms.
The strongest contribution by structure came from computer programming, consultancy and related activities, which accounted for 47.1% of sector operating income and 50.4% of sector operating costs. This segment recorded annual income growth of 14.7%, while costs increased by 9.8%. Unlike the wider sector average, this sub-segment showed a more favourable balance between income and cost growth, reinforcing its central role as the most commercially important and scalable part of Serbia’s ICT economy.
Telecommunications remained the second-largest component, with 28.6% of operating income and 22.5% of operating costs. However, its annual income index stood at 98.9, indicating a slight year-on-year decline in operating income, while costs increased by 12.2%. That divergence points to a more pressured telecom operating environment, where capital-intensive networks, maintenance, spectrum-related obligations, energy costs and competitive pricing may weigh more heavily on margins than in software-driven activities.
Wholesale of information and communication equipment also delivered a strong first-quarter reading. It accounted for 15.0% of operating income and 17.2% of operating costs, with income rising by 35.2% year on year and costs by 28.6%. This suggests a robust cycle in ICT equipment distribution, likely linked to corporate digitalisation, replacement demand, network upgrades and investment in IT infrastructure. The segment’s high cost share, however, reflects the import-heavy and inventory-sensitive nature of equipment trade, where revenue growth can be significant but margins are usually thinner than in software and consulting.
Software publishing remained a small but fast-growing segment, representing 0.3% of both operating income and operating costs. Its operating income increased by 21.6%, while costs rose by 13.7%. Although its statistical weight in the sector remains limited, the growth profile is notable because software publishing can carry higher intellectual-property value and stronger scalability than many service-based activities.
Data processing, hosting, related activities and web portals accounted for 2.4% of operating income and 2.5% of operating costs. Income rose by 5.0%, while costs fell by 8.3% year on year. This is one of the more interesting signals in the dataset, because it suggests that the segment may be improving operating efficiency even as demand for hosting, cloud-linked services, platform infrastructure and data-management capacity continues to grow.
Repair of computers and communication equipment was a marginal but stable activity, with 0.4% of both operating income and costs. Income rose by 14.9%, while costs increased by 14.1%, broadly keeping the income-cost relationship balanced.
The manufacturing side of the ICT sector showed a more uneven picture. ICT manufacturing as a whole recorded annual income growth of 6.4%, while costs rose by 8.0%. Manufacture of computers and peripheral equipment was the strongest manufacturing sub-segment, with operating income up 13.1% and costs up 28.0%. Manufacture of electronic components and boards recorded modest income growth of 1.4%, while costs fell by 9.3%. By contrast, manufacture of communication equipment saw income decline by 15.8% and costs fall by 27.1%, while manufacture of consumer electronics recorded a sharper fall, with income down 28.5% and costs down 47.8%.
The quarterly comparison gives a different reading. Against the fourth quarter of 2025, total ICT operating income stood at an index of 79.6, while operating costs stood at 84.8. This points to a seasonal or cyclical decline from the previous quarter, a common pattern after a stronger year-end period in technology spending, contract closing, equipment procurement and corporate budget execution. The decline does not necessarily suggest structural weakness, but it does underline the importance of reading the data through both annual and quarter-on-quarter lenses.
Across the non-financial business economy, operating income in the first quarter was also below the fourth quarter of 2025, with a total index of 86.7, while costs stood at 85.4. In that sense, the ICT sector followed the broader quarterly slowdown, but its annual growth profile remained stronger than the economy-wide average.
For Serbia’s economic structure, the message is clear. ICT continues to outperform the broader non-financial business economy in revenue growth, but the sector is no longer insulated from cost inflation and investment pressure. The most attractive part of the sector remains computer programming, consultancy and related activities, where revenue growth still exceeds cost growth and where Serbia’s labour-based export model remains commercially relevant. Telecommunications and equipment-related activities are more exposed to cost escalation, capital expenditure needs and imported-input dynamics.
The first-quarter figures therefore reinforce ICT’s position as one of Serbia’s key growth sectors, while also showing a more mature phase of development. The sector is expanding, but the quality of that expansion increasingly depends on productivity, pricing power, export contracts, automation, higher-value software work and the ability of companies to manage labour and infrastructure costs without eroding margins.
