Telecom: Mobile Market Up 1%, Landline Market Down 4% In 2H 2010

05.26.2011 By Bostan Radu

Romania's mobile telephone market grew 1% in the second half of 2010, after a 4% drop in the first part of the year, reaching 24.6 million users, while the landline phone market shrunk 4%, to 3.89 million subscribers, according to the data of telecom regulator ANCOM.

Every telecom segment except landline and rented line telephone registered growth in the second half of 2010, ANCOM official Eduard Lovin said Thursday in a conference.

The number of users on prepaid cards grew by 2% in the second half of last year. The number of subscriptions registered to companies grew 0.1%, while subscriptions registered to individuals posted a 0.6% decline.

More than 60% of all active SIM cards are registered to prepaid card users, while individual and company subscriptions make up around 27% and 12%, respectively, said Lovin.

The landline phone segment declined as regards the number of lines (-4% to 4.5 million), the number of users (-4% to 3.89 million), total traffic (-7%) and average voice call length (-2%). The number of lines registered to individuals and to companies decreased by 4% and 2%, respectively.

Total voice call traffic in mobile phone networks grew to 26.5 billion minutes, but this 4% growth is almost three times less than the growth posted in the first half of 2010. Average monthly voice traffic reached 3.01 hours, while the average monthly number of text messages remained constant at 27. The average length of a voice call through a mobile network decreased to 2.12 minutes.

According to ANCOM data, Internet services continued to grow during the second half of 2010, although not as quickly as in the previous half. Mobile broadband connections increased 21% to 4 million, including almost a million connections through modems/cards/USB. Landline connections grew by 2%, half the rate of growth in the first half of 2010, to 3 million.

The number of connections through xDSL and UTP/FTP cables increased 9% and 1%, respectively, while connections through other means declined.

The landline Internet penetration rate reached 14 per 100 people, or 36.8 per 100 households. Following growth in the last three reporting periods, landline connections owned by companies decreased 6% in the second half of 2010, compared to the 3% increase in landline connections owned by individual users, said Lovin.

The number of subscribers to television rebroadcasting services grew 2% in the second half of 2010, to 5.74 million, mainly over a 5% increase in the number of satellite (direct-to-home - DTH) users, while the number of cable subscribers declined 1%. IPTV technology continues to post significant growth (+135%), but its share of the total number of rebroadcasting subscribers remains very low (0.5%).

The number of cable rebroadcasting subscribers continued to decline in urban areas, while remaining constant in rural areas. At the end of 2010, Romania had 2.8 million digital rebroadcasting subscribers, up 7% from the first half of the year. Although the total number of subscriptions to cable television rebroadcasting services declined, the number of digital cable rebroadcasting subscriptions increased 13%, to 0.4 million.