19.10.2009
“The current economic circumstances have had some influence upon the Romanian electronic communications sector, yet the market evolves well. Overall, consumption did not drop, on the contrary, voice traffic increased significantly. The cumulated number of fixed and mobile telephony users remained the same, the number of broadband connexions increased,” the ANCOM President, Mr. Catalin Marinescu, declared during the first session of the 18th edition of the Global Forum 2009, which is taking place in Bucharest these days.
The ANCOM President presented preliminary statistical data on the market evolution during the first half of 2009, which indicate that the number of fixed telephony users, expressed as total number of lines, registered a slight growth, whereas the total number of “active” mobile telephony users witnessed a slightly downward trend. That is, the total number of fixed lines installed increased from 5.17 million to 5.31 million, while the number of “active” mobile telephony users was in a minor regression, from 24.47 million at the end of 2008 to 24.41 million in mid-2009.
3.9 million fixed lines were installed for residential users and 1.4 million – for business users. The number of lines installed for residential users outstripped by 11% the one of 31 December 2008, whereas the number of lines installed for business users remained unchanged. Thus, the total number of fixed telephony users slightly increased, mostly due to the mobile operators’ introduction of Homezone solutions.
The fixed telephony penetration rate reached a new historic maximum of 24.7% at the population level (+3.6% compared to the same period of 2008) and 54.6% at household level (+3.1% compared to the same period of 2008). The total voice traffic achieved on the fixed public networks dropped by 16%, from 4.6 billion minutes in the first half of 2008 to 3.9 billion minutes in the first half of this year.
The total voice traffic, of more than 19.5 billion minutes, originated by the end-users on the mobile public telephone networks, upsurged by approximately 34% as compared to the similar period of 2008. The most substantial growth (+39%) occurred in the segment of traffic towards the fixed public networks. The most important weight in the total traffic volume is represented again by on-net mobile traffic (82.9%), followed by the traffic towards other mobile public networks (126%).
The fixed broadband Internet segment increased by 5% in comparison to 31 December 2008, reaching a total number of connections of 2.64 million, while the active mobile broadband connections registered an important growth, by 58%, up to 2.4 million as compared to 1.5 million at the end of 2008.
“Overall, the market circumstances benefited the end-users: in telephony, for example, the same number of consumers used the service 30% more, paying even less money than before. Although we do not have data about revenues yet, information from the market indicates that the operators’ revenues decreased. Consumption grows, revenues decrease, therefore the retail prices have dropped significantly”, the ANCOM President explained.
The President of the regulatory body also announced that, in order to support the industry in these economic circumstances, ANCOM is preparing measures that are meant to make it easier for operators to continue investing and have working capital at hand. During this week, the Authority will launch for public consultation a decision that facilitates the payment of the spectrum tariff, introducing the possibility to pay in two instalments instead of the previous method of payment in one instalment at the beginning of the year. The rule of one annual instalment payment will be preserved for certain radiocommunications services, as well as for the operators that owe a tariff, in RON, equivalent to no more than 200 EUR. ANCOM has also reduced the amount of the monitoring tariff charged this year to 0.065% of the turnover, i.e. 50% less compared to 2008.
The ANCOM presentation is available here.