Telekom Srbija’s long-awaited 2025 financial statements present a company with sharply stronger earnings, expanding regional scale and a much heavier debt structure. The headline profit figure is impressive. Net profit more than doubled to RSD 24.78bn, compared with RSD 10.08bn a year earlier, while operating revenue rose from RSD 155.31bn in 2024 to RSD 195.38bn in 2025. On the surface, the numbers point to a stronger commercial year for Serbia’s dominant state-controlled telecom operator.
The balance sheet, however, tells a more demanding story. Telekom’s long-term loan debt increased to RSD 400.1bn at the end of 2025, up from RSD 231.59bn at the end of 2024. Short-term loans also rose sharply, from RSD 14.4bn to RSD 56.99bn. Taken together, loan exposure moved above RSD 457bn, or close to €4bn, placing leverage, refinancing and cash-flow conversion at the centre of any serious reading of the accounts.
The wider liability structure is larger still. Including international corporate bonds, domestic bonds, leasing obligations, supplier liabilities and other financial obligations, Telekom’s total financial obligations reached RSD 658.93bn in 2025, compared with RSD 431.20bn a year earlier. That increase changes the meaning of the profit result. Telekom is not simply a company reporting stronger earnings; it is a company using a significantly larger financial base to support expansion, infrastructure spending, content acquisition and regional positioning.
For investors, creditors and the Serbian state, the key question is whether Telekom’s improved profitability can begin to reduce financial pressure or whether earnings growth will remain absorbed by capital expenditure, refinancing costs and strategic expansion. The company’s results show stronger revenue and profit, but they also show that the balance sheet has become more sensitive to interest rates, bond-market access and maturity management.
Liquidity remains an important pressure point. At the end of 2025, short-term liabilities exceeded current assets by RSD 16.82bn. This was an improvement from the RSD 24.94bn gap recorded at the end of 2024, but it still shows that Telekom’s working-capital position requires active management. The company stated that it continues to operate profitably and that cash flows from operations, dividends and available external financing should allow it to meet contractual obligations during 2026. Unused financial credit lines amounted to RSD 15.85bn.
The cost of debt has become one of the most important indicators in Telekom’s financial profile. Euro-linked variable-rate loans were tied to Euribor with margins ranging from 1.8% to 6.15%, while fixed-rate financial loans mostly carried interest rates between 3.1% and 6.1%. Dinar-denominated loans were linked to Belibor or the National Bank of Serbia reference rate plus a margin. This structure means that Telekom’s financing costs are exposed not only to its own credit profile but also to wider monetary conditions in Serbia and the euro area.
Telekom has also moved deeper into capital markets. In October 2024, the company issued $900mn of five-year corporate eurobonds, with a dollar coupon of 7% and an estimated hedged euro cost of around 5.8%. In September 2025, it issued RSD 23.5bn of domestic corporate bonds with a five-year maturity and a coupon equal to three-month Belibor plus 2.95%. These transactions show Telekom’s shift from a primarily bank-financed corporate into a larger benchmark borrower across international and domestic bond markets.
The company’s later 2026 refinancing is not part of the 2025 year-end balance sheet, but it is central to the forward-looking interpretation of the accounts. Telekom subsequently raised around €1.95bn through an international bond transaction intended mainly to refinance existing debt, extend maturities and support investment in 5G, fibre networks, multimedia platforms and digital services. That transaction reduced near-term refinancing concentration, but it also confirmed the scale of Telekom’s capital-market dependence.
The strategic logic behind the debt is clear. Telekom is trying to defend and expand its position across telecom infrastructure, mobile services, broadband, digital platforms, towers, media distribution and sports content. Its regional footprint includes Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia, while its group structure includes subsidiaries such as Telekom Srpske, Mtel Podgorica, Arena Channels Group, Mts Kosovska Mitrovica, MTEL Global, Yunet International, Mtel Skoplje, TS Ventures, SportCo, Mondo Inc, BeotelNet Carrier and New Towers.
This makes Telekom more than a traditional telecom operator. It is also a regional media and infrastructure platform, with strategic importance for Serbia’s digital economy and public-sector corporate landscape. The presence of Arena Channels Group inside the group structure underlines the role of sports broadcasting and content in Telekom’s competitive strategy. Content rights, multimedia platforms and bundled services can support customer retention and revenue growth, but they also require heavy upfront spending and long-term commercial discipline.
The 2025 figures therefore need to be read through two parallel lenses. The first is operational: Telekom generated materially higher revenue and profit, showing that its business base remains strong and that scale effects are visible. The second is financial: the company is carrying a much larger debt load, and the benefits of growth must increasingly be measured against interest costs, refinancing needs and free cash-flow generation.
Related-party and public-sector exposure also remain part of the picture. Telekom disclosed obligations to JP PTT of RSD 962.97mn at the end of 2025, up from RSD 705.98mn at the end of 2024, mainly connected to the lease of business, technical and warehouse space. Such transactions are not unusual for a state-controlled infrastructure group, but they reinforce Telekom’s position inside a wider public-sector corporate network.
Legal risks appear modest relative to the company’s balance sheet, but they are still disclosed. At the end of 2025, Telekom was involved as a defendant in a number of court proceedings, with estimated claims of RSD 469.2mn, excluding possible default interest. Provisions for potential losses from ongoing disputes amounted to RSD 27.68mn. These figures are not large enough to define the financial story, but they form part of the wider risk perimeter around the group.
Post-balance-sheet events suggest that Telekom’s restructuring and expansion will continue. In January 2026, the company established TS Media Production as a wholly owned company. In March 2026, it acquired 100% of Orion Telekom WiFi. These moves point to continued consolidation across media, connectivity and digital infrastructure while the company simultaneously manages a larger refinancing cycle.
The central issue for Telekom Srbija is no longer whether it can grow. The 2025 accounts show that it can generate stronger revenue and profit. The more important question is whether that growth can produce enough sustainable free cash flow to support investment, service debt and gradually reduce balance-sheet pressure. A company with RSD 24.78bn in net profit and nearly RSD 659bn in total financial obligations is not judged only by its income statement. It is judged by the durability of its financing model.
Telekom’s position now carries wider significance for Serbia’s corporate finance market. As one of the country’s largest state-linked companies and an increasingly visible bond issuer, Telekom functions as a test case for how Serbian corporates access international capital, refinance large liability stacks and communicate credit discipline to investors. Stronger earnings help that story, but they do not remove the need for clearer cash-flow discipline, transparent capital allocation and careful management of debt maturities.
The 2025 accounts ultimately show a stronger but more leveraged Telekom Srbija. Profitability improved, revenue expanded and the company continued to build regional scale. At the same time, debt rose sharply, financial obligations deepened and the business became more exposed to refinancing execution. Telekom’s next financial phase will be measured less by headline profit growth and more by whether its strategy can convert scale into cash generation strong enough to carry the balance sheet it has built.
