Orange Romania's revenues increased in the first quarter of this year by 29.1% to 283.3 million euros, while the number of recorded customers increased by 16.4% to 8.271 million, according to data provided by the mobile telephone operator yesterday.
The operator has significantly improved its growth rate on last year when it posted a 23% increase in turnover, of 239 million euros, at the end of the first quarter. The almost 30% growth in turnover comes amid a slowdown in the number of newly subscribed customers, in comparison with the same period last year.
Orange has added another 230,000 new customers since the end of last year. In the first quarter of 2006 it had announced a 34% increase in its customer base.
"We are very pleased with the acceleration of the growth rate in the number of post-paid customers and also with the significant development of network traffic compared with previous quarters," Orange Romania's chief executive Richard Moat stated in a press release. This year the company's goal was to continue to develop its broadband network, which includes the EDGE and 3G technologies; it is also soon expected to introduce HSDPA services, known as 3.5G, added Moat.
Orange did not report the number of customers using the mobile data transmission services based on EGDE and 3G technologies, but specified, "because of the competitive offers launched recently by Orange, the number of broadband customers (EDGE and 3G) has seen a significant increase."
In the first quarter of 2007, the operator witnessed fast growth rates in the number of subscribers in the countries of Senegal - 97.4%, Jordan - 79.6% and Egypt - 53.2%, according to a release issued by Orange's owner France Telecom.
Romania has been included in the category of markets indicating a significant growth potential for owners France Telecom, alongside Poland, Bot
