“Although in 2008 the first signs of the world economic crisis appeared in Romania too, all the electronic communications sectors registered significant increases. We will be able to assess the effects of the current economic climate on the Romanian communications only in this year’s fall, when the data regarding the 2009 first semester are to be available. We expect stagnations and possibly even decreases in certain sectors; however, we will certainly face an increase of the broadband penetration”, Catalin Marinescu, the President of ANCOM, stated in the opening of the 13th edition of the Communications Day, the annual conference dedicated to the communications industry of Romania.
On this occasion, Mr. Marinescu also presented the Statistical Data Report for the second semester of 2008 which shows that the voice traffic originated by the mobile telephony end-users exceeded 16 billion calls, respectively 30 billion voice minutes, thus registering an increase of approximately 36%, respectively 44% compared to 2007. Depending on the volume of traffic of minutes, respectively of calls, in 2008, a mobile telephony user achieved an average monthly traffic of 1 hour and 54 minutes, respectively 62 calls. Over the same period, the duration of a voice call originated by the end-users slightly increased by only 7 seconds, reaching 1 minute and 51 seconds.
As regards the structure of the traffic itemised by the called destinations, no significant changes were registered compared to 2007. The Romanian users continue to talk most frequently within their own network, the on-net traffic weighing the most (i.e. 81%) within the total traffic achieved through the mobile telephone networks. The growth by more than 47% of the on-net traffic is mainly due to the providers’ numerous offers of free minutes within their own networks.
The number of SMS sent in 2008 grew by 36.5%, up to 4 billion, 79% of which is represented by the on-net SMS traffic.
As well, 2008 brought important increases of the market indicators in the fixed telephony sector. Thus, the providers reported a number of 5 million access lines, increasing by 18% compared to end-2007, the penetration rate reaching 23.4% at the population level (+3.6 percentage points compared to 31.12.2007) and, respectively, 53.6% at the household level (+3.8 percentage points compared to 31.12.2007), and a total traffic volume of 10.1 billion minutes, increasing by 15.5% compared to end-2007.
After the constant decreases registered in the fixed telephony sector during the last years, the volume of the voice traffic originated in the fixed public telephone network grew significantly in 2008, by +22% (almost 10 billion minutes in 2008 compared to almost 8.2 billion in 2007), mainly due to the growth of the voice traffic volume achieved by the alternative providers’ users (+50%), as well as, to a smaller extent, due to the increase of the voice traffic volume achieved by the former incumbent’s users (+10%).
The traffic of the alternative providers’ users holds a 36% quota, i.e. 3.7 billion minutes, within the total voice traffic achieved through the fixed public networks in 2008. The alternative providers’ subscribers used the fixed telephone mainly to initiate calls to other fixed networks – 33.1%; however, the voice traffic in the abovementioned providers’ own networks holds nearly the same quota (32.5%).
In 2008, the average duration of a voice call achieved over the fixed public networks reached 2 minutes and 45 seconds, increasing by 24 seconds compared to 2007, due to the existence on the market of certain offers that comprise a significant or even unlimited number of minutes included in the subscription.
As of 31 December 2008, the sector of paid audio-visual programme retransmission services counted 5.65 million subscribers, approximately 7.7% more than at the end of 2007. Similarly to the previous years, in 2008, the penetration rate at the household level of the audio-visual programme retransmission services (i.e. 77%) showed a positive trend, increasing by 5.5 percentage points compared to 2007. According to the data reported to the Authority, the number of subscribers to the services provided over DTH satellite networks grew by approximately 27%, reaching more than 2 million subscribers, whereas the number of subscribers to the services provided using the IP technology grew by 33%. The number of cable connections decreased by approximately 1.4% compared to the same period of 2007.
The cable subscribers further hold the largest share in the total number of subscribers (62%), a decrease compared to 31 December 2007 (i.e. 68%), while the subscribers to the services provided over the DTH (direct-to-home) satellite networks hold 38% within the total, increasing by 6 percentage points compared to 2007. The subscribers to the services provided using the IP technology hold a small quota within the total, especially due to the exclusivist character of this service as regards both the quality and the provision area, which is limited only for Bucharest and Voluntari-Ilfov.
“According to the preliminary data, the revenues registered last year from the provision of the electronic communications services exceeded EUR 4.5 billion, increasing by 7.2% compared to the previous year; however, if we disregarded the influence of the exchange rate fluctuation, the real increase in the national currency would be of 9.7%. We estimate that, in 2009, the growth rates of the communications services will be lower than in the previous years, as the providers focus more on enhancing the use of state-of-art services and less on attracting new clients”, the President of ANCOM added.
More details on the evolution of the 2008 electronic communications market are available for consultation in the ANCOM Statistical Data Report (for the second half of 2008) which was published on the Authority’s website, here.