American-born Richard Anderson, 58, will be replaced as chief executive of UPC Romania - the largest cable TV operator on the domestic market. His replacement comes as a result of the decline in the number of customers and fierce competition from Romtelecom and RCS&RDS, sources on the domestic telecom market told ZF.
UPC lost customers on its main line of business- cable TV last year, and did not grow as much as Romtelecom and RCS&RDS did on the Internet and satellite TV sectors - market segments that witnessed significant growth in 2007.
A replacement for Anderson could be a manager brought in by the company's owner - US Liberty Global International Group, which provides TV, Internet and telephony services for approximately 10 million clients throughout Europe.
The decision should be announced soon. Contacted by ZF, the officials of UPC Romania did not wish to comment on the information at hand. In January, however, Richard Anderson was reluctant to say in an interview with ZIARUL FINANCIAR exactly when his management contract with UPC Romania would expire.
"I don't know how long I will stay in Romania. All I can say is that I will stay here at least until tomorrow... I came here for a four-year contract and stayed almost eight," Anderson told ZF in an interview on January 29.
The departure of Richard Anderson as chief executive happens shortly after Dragos Tanase, UPC's chief financial officer for seven years, left to become vice-president with Rosia Montana Gold Corporation. The operator has not announced a replacement for Dragos Tanase yet.
UPC faced tough competition on the TV service, fixed telephony and Internet markets last year. After Greek OTE group replaced almost every single member of Romtelecom's executive team, the operator launched aggressively priced offers on the market, which halted the decline of its fixed telephony services and prompted significant growth on the Internet and satellite TV segments. On the other hand, RCS&RDS continued the aggressive pricing policy that helped it to make a name on the market and launched mobile telephony services, provided without a monthly charge to the existing clients.
UPC has to cope with additional pressure from RCS & RDS, which is building its infrastructure in parallel to UPC's in various places throughout the country, in order to appeal to the existing cable TV, Internet and telephony customer base.
RCS&RDS provides its fixed telephony service to its cable TV subscribers free of charge.
Under the circumstances, UPC lost more than 100,000 clients on the cable TV segment (about 8% of its users) in the first nine months of last year, a figure that fell to 1.261 million users.
Last year, Richard Anderson said that in his entire 30-year experience in the telecommunications industry he viewed Romania as having the most competitive telecom market.
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