Integrated fixed-mobile services and additional services based on the fixed and mobile Internet infrastructures are one of the main priorities of the telecoms in Romania, amid fierce competition and fast-advancing technology. The largest actors on the telecommunications market in Romania are therefore channeling investments towards complete communications packages – from cable TV and fixed Internet services to mobile voice and data services, along with new market segments that developed with the surge in data service sales and data usage – smarthome, smartoffice and machine to machine.
“Our priority is to grow on the mobile [segment] and provide a superior experience to our customers. The first goal is to ensure network quality and functionality, coverage, bring the broadband network to as many people as possible,” said Liudmila Climoc, CEO of Orange, the leading mobile telephony provider in Romania.
“The second goal is to continue developing what we started last year, that is the development of fixed and mobile conversion services. We relaunched our fixed mobile convergent service offers through a new campaign, which has been yielding very good results so far. We are talking B2B and consumer segments, here.”
Telekom Romania, the largest telecommunications group in Romania, was the first to offer integrated services three years ago.
“Our priority is to continue transformation and simplification,” said Miroslav Majoros, Telekom Romania group CEO.
The group wants a new approach, a new set offers and to continue the revolution it started. The second goal is to focus on technology and on developing it. It also wants to focus on the fixed segment and the third goal is smart city, where it can fully apply its IT knowledge and skills, he added.
The telecoms in Romania try to use the infrastructure and their IT&C knowledge to retain and gain new customers with various additional services and embrace various strategies to remain competitive on the market, such as solutions tailored to the needs of their customers.
“The first goal is big data,” said Murielle Lourilloux, CEO of Vodafone Romania. Vodafone must adapt to the needs of its customers. With 10 million customers in Romania, it cannot assume they all have the same needs, it needs to adjust to what they want. The second goal is expansion towards the home segment, which entails addressing the needs of all homes, for all family members and includes solutions for all devices, which includes IoT solutions, she added.
Telecom service users are currently accessing content via several devices, be it written, video or audio content and they use Internet-connected smartphones, tablets and smart TV to do it. Hence the need for higher Internet speeds.
“The telecom market is dynamic and competitive and continues to grow. We’ve increased the customer network by 30% in the past five years and expect growth to continue. We will continue to invest,” said Robert Redeleanu, CEO of UPC Romania and Hungary, the third leading actor on the fixed Internet and cable TV market in Romania.
“Loyalty is high among Romanians. We will need to bring more content, higher speed. We have 300,000 users for our ConnectBox. More than 30% of our customers use ConnectBox. We are already conducting tests for the new ConnectBoxes due to be introduced in some countries in 2018. These ConnectBoxes will be better because we make home connection for Romanian customers a priority.”
Besides the ConnectBox, UPC is also offering the Horizon mediabox, which allows users to record TV shows to watch it later. UPC has about 100,000 Horizon users in Romania. Video on demand is seeing an increase in usage in Romania.
There is still room for growth in mobile and fixed communications in Romania, especially in rural areas.
“Internet penetration is rather low in Romania. One of our opportunities is to develop mobile services, because we are competing with companies like Google and Amazon. We need to boost revenue and develop. Another priority are digital services, especially video,” said Valentin Popoviciu vice-president RCS&RDS at the ZF Digital ’17 conference.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)