The revenue was 16% higher than in 2011 and EUR750,000 of it came from the “new media” division, Marian Pantazescu, general manager of the operator told ZF.
“We ended 2012 with revenue growth of more than 16% to over EUR10 million for the first time. New media saw the highest growth of the three lines of business, more than 200% to about EUR750,000,” Pantazescu said.
The company wants its online video unit to double revenue to EUR1.5 million this year. It now has 70,000 subscribers to the Seenow service, which it will launch on two more markets in the region.
Most of the revenue of Direct One, which has a national infrastructure of more than 6,000 kilometers of fiber optics, comes from data carrier and infrastructure rental services.
“Growth of data carrier services stood at 70% and ‘dark fiber’ (infrastructure rental i.e.), the most important for us in terms of cash generation, at 10%. We expect the latter market to be flat in 2013, because it is relatively saturated. The growth that will come, though low, will come from the development of 4G networks of cell phone operators. Once they develop these networks, they will need additional data capacity, as the traffic increases.”
The company expects EUR11 million revenue in 2013, EUR1.5 million of which generated by the new media business. The doubling of the revenue of this line of business should come from the increase in the number of markets served and from expansion of current partnerships, Marian Pantazescu said.
The company provides the video-on-demand service under its own brand and in partnership with Vodafone Romania and Cosmote/Romtelecom.
Direct One introduced Seenow to Greece and Cyprus in partnership with Samsung early this year and will enter two more markets in the region by yearend, its general manager said, without specifying which those two were.
Romania’s on-demand video market will become crowded soon, Pantazescu says, once Apple introduces its movie rental service, which he expects to happen this year and Amazon introduces its services, as well.
“Apple and Amazon will definitely enter the Romanian market. It is quite difficult to gain market share on Hollywood-made content alone. We would rather rely on localizing content and on bringing it to platforms where it is harder to import pirated content, such as Apple’s. We are now educating the market, creating the consumption habit.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)