Vodafone Romania, the second-largest mobile telephony operator on the domestic market, is expected to total 150 stores by the end of this month, after it acquired dealer Petrocom and also increases its own network.
"We will have 90 stores of our own by the end of November, in addition to the 57 stores we got from buying Petrocom. This means that within just one year, we have almost tripled the number of Vodafone stores, which provides us with exceptional national distribution," Liliana Solomon, CEO of Vodafone Romania told ZIARUL FINANCIAR.
Unlike Orange and Cosmote, Vodafone does not have partnerships with large GSM retail chains. Orange is linked with EuroGSM, one of the top two retailers, and also works with other companies that have large store networks, such as Plus GSM and Proton Technologies.
Cosmote works with Germanos, one of the biggest players on the GSM retail market in Romania. Germanos used to be Vodafone's partner in Romania but the contract between the two was terminated in September 2006, after Greek mobile telephony group Cosmote bought Germanos in an international deal, which included Romania.
Vodafone officials say there are no unique recipes for the retail strategy and the current ratio between the company's own stores and those held by partners is in line with the company's goals.
"Every operator uses the retail strategy that best suits its business goals, there is no unique recipe. Our strategy is to maintain a balance between the development of our own network of stores and distribution through our partners," Liliana Solomon says. She would not specify whether the operator was planning any further acquisitions on the domestic GSM market.
"Retail distribution is an important component in our strategy. We will continue to expand our distribution network to meet our business goals".
In addition, Vodaf
