24 May 2012
According to the data reported by the six mobile telephony operators activating on the Romanian market, the number of active users decreased in 2011, but both voice and SMS traffic grew instead. On average, every month between July and December last year, a total of 3 hours and 26 minutes of calls were made and 43 SMS messages were sent from an active SIM card. The full report on the mobile telephone services in the second semester of 2011 was published today by the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) on www.ancom.org.ro.
The total number of active mobile telephony users amounted to 23.4 million at end-2011, down by 1% compared to midyear and by 4% as compared to the total number registered at end-2010. The number of active prepaid cards fell by 6% in 2011, to 14.05 million, whereas the number of residential subscriptions decreased by 3% (to 6.42 million) and the number of subscriptions concluded by the business users rose by 5% (to 2.94 million) as compared to the values registered in 2010. The mobile telephony penetration rate at the end of last year reached 123 active SIM cards per 100 inhabitants and was computed based on the preliminary results of the census conducted in 2011.
Despite the fact that the total number of users decreased, the voice traffic kept growing and registered almost 58 billion minutes, by 11% more than in 2010. Within the total voice traffic achieved last year, 85.6% (more than 49 billion minutes) was held by the traffic to the operators’ own network, 9.6% by the traffic to the other mobile telephone networks (5.5 billion minutes), 3.8% by the traffic to fixed telephone networks (up by +29% as compared to 2010) and 1% was held by the traffic to international networks (+16% year-on-year increase).
In the second semester of 2011, the prepaid users achieved 55% of the total traffic, while the postpaid users achieved 45% of the total traffic (31% by postpaid residential users and 14% by postpaid business users).
The average length of a call originated on mobile public networks was 2 minutes and 17 seconds in the second half of 2011, a slight decrease (-6 seconds) as compared to the average registered in the January-June period of the same year. The average length of a call initiated by prepaid users was higher (02:32) than that of a call initiated by postpaid users (02:02).
On average, every month in the second semester of 2011, a total of 3 hours and 26 minutes of calls were made and 43 SMS messages were sent from an active SIM card, more by 7 minutes, respectively 7 SMS messages than in the previous semester, given that the use of mobile telephone services intensified due to the commercial offers made available by the operators in the market.
In 2011, more than 11 billion SMS messages were sent – up by 41% as compared to 2010. Out of the total of SMS messages, 78% were sent by prepaid users, whereas only 22% were sent by postpaid users. The SMS messages sent on the providers’ own network hold a majority share (93%). After increasing in the first semester of 2011 (+81%), the video calls traffic decreased by 10% in the second half of the year.
As for the use of roaming services, if the volume of outgoing calls remained steady in 2011 as compared to the previous year, the volume of incoming calls registered a significant increase, from 184 million minutes in 2010 to 227 million minutes in 2011 (+23%), whereas the number of roaming SMS messages increased by 10%, to 103 million in 2011.
The statistical data report relies on the data reported by the providers of services supplied over terrestrial mobile public networks, based upon the commercial activities carried out between 1 July and 31 December 2011, and is available for consultation here.