Mobile phone companies’ return to growth is largely because of the disappearance of the base effect of the 70% cut in mobile termination rates as of April 2014 (from 3.07 eurocents per minute to 0.96 eurocents per minute), following a decision of telecom industry regulator ANCOM.
The measure caused an about EUR200 million decline in operators’ revenue. Second quarter was the first when the results of the mobile phone operators’ were compared with a period when mobile termination rates were the same as today.
Not all operators were able to return to growth, though, as Telekom’s communications service revenue was lower than last year, despite a significant rise in the number of contracts. The company lost ground on the pre-paid segment, where rival RCS&RDS launched aggressive offers last April.
All mobile phone operators saw a surge in mobile data usage, though: Orange posted 112% growth in this department, Vodafone 128% and Telekom 101%.
Telekom, on the other hand, was unable to contain the decline of the fixed Internet segment, where it saw its fifth quarter of decline in customer numbers. The group says this is due to the areas where it has yet to deploy fiber and the overall performance is good. Telekom has lost 42,685 contracts since the end of the first quarter of 2014, the last quarter of growth for its fixed Internet business.
UPC, the third leading operator on this particular market, gained 54,100 fixed Internet customers in the second quarter alone, an increase of more than 13% on the year-ago period. The cable company part of the US Liberty Global posted growth across the board, some of it because of acquisitions that got it more than 15,000 contracts. Its revenue in US dollars fell because of the depreciation of the leu against the US currency, as UPC’s rates are set in lei. UPC’s revenue is up 11% in lei on the year-ago period.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)