Orange: Revenues down mainly on prepay segment

Orange Romania's revenues slid by 8.7% in the third quarter from a year ago, to 246m euros, amid the difficult economy and the fallout from the VAT hike and public sector salary cuts.

The operator maintains that subscription revenues stabilised, but the prepay card segment saw further declines. Against the second quarter of this year, Orange's revenues dropped by 1m euros (0.4%).

Orange Romania's number of clients fell by 2.8% in July-September, against the same period of 2009, to 10.398 million. At the same time, the average annual income per user stood at 83.3 euros. The company does not provide any data on the number of prepay card users.

"This quarter, while revenues from subscription services stabilised further, prepay services revenues reflected renewed degradation because of the economic environment. As a market leader, we will continue to invest and earmark resources to provide our clients with the simplest and highest-quality products on the Romanian market," stated Orange Romania's CEO, Thierry Millet.

On the Internet segment, the operator registered a 35% increase in the total number of clients against the third quarter of 2009, to 3.024 million.