Other segments of the IT&C sector besides software that expanded last year were the call-centers and services centers of multinationals, each of which having hired more than 1,000 people. The sectors with the highest number of employees are software and telecom, over 85,000.
This ZF yearbook includes rankings of the 15 largest actors on key segments of the local industry – telecom, software, IT&C integrators, IT&C wholesalers, providers of GPS tracking solutions, as well as a ranking of the 600 largest companies by revenue and of the 100 highest net profits.
The largest 400 software companies in Romania posted 12.57 billion lei (EUR2.75 billion) revenue in 2017, an increase of 20% on the previous year. The market leaders were the subsidiary of US-held Oracle and local IT security solutions developer Bitdefender, held by the Talpes family. The two remained the only companies with more than RON450 million yearly revenue. The industry grew by about 20% in 2016 over 2015, according to the previous issue of the ZF Yearbook. The net profit of the 400 companies stood at RON967.9 million, 11% higher than in 2016. With an average net profit margin of 8% of the revenue, the software companies are among the most profitable in the industry, while the average margin in the telecom sector was 3% and 2% in the IT&C wholesale sector.
A number of 190 software companies are headquartered in Bucharest, and generated RON7.4 billion revenue and had 29,616 employees. Other nine companies are based in Ilfov County, make more than RON410 million revenue and employ over 2,000 on average. This means Bucharest attracted half of the 400 largest local software companies.
The second hub of Romania’s software industry is Cluj County, whose 67 companies’ part of the top 400 see RON2.5 billion revenue and employ more than 12,000 people. The other top counties in this respect, Timisoara, Iasi and Brasov, are far behind in terms of revenue and number of employees, however.
The 60 largest communications services operators posted RON20.54 billion revenue in 2017, up 7% over 2016, according to the reports the companies submitted to the Finance Ministry that ZF analyzed.
The market is dominated by several major telecom groups, and the top ten players see RON18.9 billion revenue.
The top five actors – Orange, Vodafone, Telekom group, RCS&RDS and UPC, posted RON17.9 billion lei revenue, higher than in 2016 and 87% of the total revenue of the top 60 actors in the communications industry. The revenue in the companies’ reports with the Finance Ministry also includes sales of phones, tablets and other equipment, while the revenue derived solely from telecommunications services stood at about EUR3.8 billion.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)