The arrival of new players following the deregulation of the domestic communications market as of January 1, 2003 was expected to also lead to a division of the money the consumers were willing to spend on telecom services. Still, the calculations at the end of last year did not agree with the plans of the over 1,400 companies to have announced intentions to enter the communications sector after the deregulation, so that the landscape has remained pretty much the same. Those who knew how to take advantage of the others' hesitations were the mobile telephony operators. At least this is what the latest figures show.
Orange Romania logged total first half revenues of 206 million euros, up 33.76% from the corresponding period of 2002. At the same time, the operating income before depreciation and amortisation reached 108 million euros, 47.94% higher than in the same time last year.
Orange Romania had posted 154 million euros in revenues and 73 million euros in operating income before depreciation and amortisation in the six months ended June 2002. Out of the first-half revenues, 4.2% were derived from non-voice (data) services. Such services had accounted for a mere 0.62% the year before.
At the end of June, Orange Romania had come to total 2.59 million customers, 733,000 more than on June 30, 2002, when its portfolio comprised 1.857 million GSM service users. It posted 393 million-euro revenues in 2002 and ended the year with 2.211 million customers. In other words, Orange Romania gained 379,000 new clients in the first six months of this year, 220,000 of which signed up for services in the second quarter (it had 2.37 million subscribers on March 31, 2003).
Whereas the operator managed to make 97 million-euro revenues in the first quarter, the second quarter saw it logging 109 million euros.
The data provided by the parent company Orange show the annual average revenue per user (ARPU) in Romania dropped to 177 euros in the first half from the 239 euros registered throughout January-June 2002.
The entire group's revenues in the first six months of 2003 amounted to 8.6bn euros, 6.9% higher than in the year-ago period. Operating income before depreciation and amortisation grew 41.8% to 3.3bn euros. Orange's worldwide customer base now stands at 45.6 million.
Orange has been operating on the Romanian market since 1997 and was known as Mobil Rom back then. The operator underwent rebranding in 2002 and became Orange Romania in the first half last year.
iuliana.susanu@zf.ro
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