“What I can say is we are doing better than last year. The entire telecom industry has suffered. Now we see an improvement trend. But there’s no reason to celebrate yet,” says Berroeta. “I wouldn’t say the economy has recovered, but I would say it stopped its decline, largely because of the performance of certain sectors, such as exports,” he adds.
“We see growth in certain sectors, there are good future prospects, but consumer confidence is not there. It will eventually come because exports, as well as other future investments, will allow a better wealth distribution,” Berroeta also said.
In the financial year ended in March, Vodafone Romania revenue amounted to EUR835.6 million, down 9% from the previous year, with its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, falling 22% to EUR305.6 million.
According to a France Telecom estimate, the Romanian mobile telephony market fell 12.4% in 2010, to EUR2.123 billion. In 2008, the best year for the local cell phone industry, operators’ revenues reached EUR2.8 billion.
But there are other business segments which are seeing significant increases, Berroeta says, pointing to sales of mobile Internet services and of smartphones, which allow users to go online, install various applications, see and edit various types of files such as Microsoft Word and Excel files.
“The Internet is our main growth area, we are recording a healthy double-digit growth,” says Berroeta, without providing specific figures. The latest data published by Vodafone regarding its client base for 3G Internet services dates back to March 2009, when the company had 1.1 million customers.
The number of users is seeing a significant rise, insists Berroeta, who puts this rise down to Vodafone currently being the only operator that can offer high-speed mobile Internet in rural areas, through a 900-MHz 3G network.