Romania Telecommunications Report

Competition continued to tighten on the telecom market during H1, while profit margins reported by major players further shrunk. Customers’ propensity for spending further diminished, in line with overall economic slowdown. Under such circumstances, operators focused on increasing customer base, including the prepaid segment (seen as less profitable in the past), while also trying to preserve the current level of profitability and liquidity.
Most recent IDC’s forecasts see the local IT&C market advancing by 2.7% y/y to USD 7.6bn (EUR 5.5bn) this year. This would still be a decline in EUR terms. The telecommunications segment is expected to increase by 12.5% y/y to USD 5.4bn (EUR 3.9bn), thus offsetting the projected 15.4% y/y decline of the IT sector.