The revenues of Romtelecom, one of the biggest telecom operators in Romania, last year stagnated at around 870 million euros, though the company boosted the overall number of subscribers by over 12%, amid the aggressive promotions and the tough competition on the market. At the end of last year, the company had a total number of 4.271 million subscribers for fixed telephony, Internet and television, from 3.785 million a year before.

Romtelecom last year lost only 2% of its fixed telephony customer base (56,000 users), but the revenues generated from this business, the company's most important one, dropped by over 12%, from 520m euros to 456 million euros. The decline comes amid the introduction of free calls in fixed networks or of subscription campaigns through which new users did not pay any subscription for a period of up to six months.

Romtelecom was forced to apply sharp price cuts considering one of its biggest rivals, RCS&RDS, provided its fixed telephony service for free to its cable TV customers.

Romtelecom's subscription revenues last year fell by 7.5%, to 289m euros, while call revenues reached 166 million euros, down almost 20% from the previous year. Fixed telephony continues to be Romtelecom's most important business, with a 55% weight in revenues.

Romtelecom's revenues from the other business lines (television, Internet, services) advanced in exchange by 31% in 2008, to 307 million euros. The increase was registered as a result of the strong expansion of the TV and Internet customer base, by over 543,000 users for the entire 2008. In late 2008, Romtelecom had 643,000 TV customers and 650,000 Internet users. In the fourth quarter, Romtelecom gained over 170,000 new customers on fixed telephony, Internet ad television, more than twice as much as in the previous quarter, amid an aggressive subscription campaign (customers do not p