Romtelecom business down while Cosmote keeps growing

The operator’s client portfolio continued to grow to 6.1 million clients, compared to 5.8 million users at the end of 2008. Of the total clients, 20 percent pay monthly subscriptions and some 80 percent are prepaid services users. This leads the company, currently the third-largest mobile services operator in Romania, to a 23 percent market share. Meanwhile, its main competitors, Orange Romania and Vodafone Romania, have seen their revenues declining in the past months. The operator engaged in a strong campaign to promote its services, through both advertising and low tariffs. Cosmote is owned by the Greek OTE group, which also controls Romania’s main landline services operator, Romtelecom. The latter’s revenues dropped 8.1 percent, down to €201.4 million, in the first quarter of 2009, due to the difficult economic background and the depreciation of the leu against the euro. As far as the client portfolio is concerned, growth was slower compared to the previous quarters for internet and TV services. On the landline services segment the company lost 2.9 percent of its clients in the first quarter, compared to Q1 2008. Romtelecom’s Q1 operating profit amounted to €13.7 million, as against the €14.2 mln in operating losses in the first three months of 2008.