The rebranding got the approval of the OTE group, whereby Deutsche Telekom controls the two operators, on Wednesday.
“During the [Extraordinary General] Meeting [of Shareholders], the Items of the Agenda were discussed and decisions by majority of votes were reached. (…) the conclusion of a brand license agreement between affiliated companies of OTE S.A., namely Romtelecom and Cosmote Romania and Deutsche Telekom AG and the basic terms of the agreement were approved,” the Greek-held group OTE says in an announcement on its website, without going into details about the financial aspects of the agreement.
With more than EUR1 billion revenue together in 2013, Cosmote and Romtelecom will be in a better position to compete under the “T” umbrella with market leaders Orange and Vodafone on the communications market in Romania, Deutsche Telekom believes, knowing that Romanians usually prefer German brands.
The rebranding of Cosmote and Romtelecom will be the third major such operation on the local communications market after Dialog turned into Orange in 2002 and Connex became Vodafone in 2005/2006.
ZF has previously reported that the rebranding will take place on September 12, although neither OTE nor Deutsche Telekom has confirmed it yet.
This operation shows the German group is ready to use its own powerful brands to take on the extremely competitive Romanian telecom market, hoping to help Cosmote and Romtelecom gain ground on the subsidiaries of other large international groups like Orange, Vodafone and UPC.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)