
Telecommunication in North Macedonia
Compared to the European Union, North Macedonia has a slight downturn in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +389, there were a total of 2.28 million connections in 2020. Among them were 1.86 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.90 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.With about 62,826 webhosts, North Macedonia is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 2,120 million of these, or about 3 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: North Macedonia
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 28.01 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, North Macedonia ranked 102nd in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 8.8 Mbit/second was significantly lower (120th place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 5th place.In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, North Macedonia comes 23rd with a download speed of 63.19 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 19 Mbit was enough for 10th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in April 2022 from 181 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and Internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100% mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the Internet in North Macedonia from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in North Macedonia 2005 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020
Mobile phones 1990 - 2020
Distribution in 2020 | North Macedonia Total | North Macedonia percent | EU Total | EU percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Internet users | 1.69 m | 81.41 % | 379.48 m | 84.74 % |
Broadband users | 475,569.00 | 22.95 % | 163.72 m | 36.56 % |
Landlines | 415,390.00 | 20.04 % | 160.15 m | 35.76 % |
Mobile cellulars | 1.86 m | 89.85 % | 540.56 m | 120.71 % |