Vodafone's CTO: Romanian market still has potential for growth

Autor: Adrian Stefan Seceleanu 23.03.2011

The Romanian communications market is saturated on certain segments, but there continue to be a lot of areas, such as Internet services, where the potential for growth remains significant, Babak Fouladi, Chief Technical Officer of Vodafone, no. 2 on the Romanian mobile telephony market, told ZF.

"Romania is a fantastic market because it is in that echelon of mature markets that continue to develop. In Romania, the penetration of mobile telephony for instance is high, but the market is still under development because there is still a lot to do on segments such as fast Internet connection, for instance," Fouladi says.

Whilst six out ten households have a landline phone and 82% of families use the mobile phone, around half of them do not have a computer or Internet access, show data of a survey conducted last year by Gallup for the telecom regulator. These data, which indicate a future booming increase in demand for data, are among the reasons for Vodafone's massive investments in building a 900-MHz 3G network, which allows the company to cover around 90% of Romania's population with high-speed data services. Vodafone will continue its investments this year, Fouladi says. "We will continue to invest both in the network and in the IT department. We will invest in improving coverage and speed of data services."