Demand for Internet services via fixed lines went down in the last quarter of last year compared with the previous years but maintained high, reveals a ZF analysis of the figures calculated by Romtelecom and UPC, two of the biggest players on this market.
The two operators added almost 70,000 new clients for their fixed Internet services in the fourth quarter of 2009, with Romtelecom getting most of them (57,362). The number of clients fell slightly compared with the same time of 2008, but quite a lot compared with the last three months of 2007, when consumer spending was rising fast, fuelled by economic growth and lending.
As for mobile Internet services, Romtelecom gained 27,000 clients, while Orange, the number one on the local telecom market, saw over 470,000 more people starting to use its mobile data services. Vodafone did not reveal any client numbers, saying only that it did go up in 2009. Zapp, a company acquired by Cosmote last year, had according to Deutsche Telecom, 380,000 voice and data service clients at the end of 2009 compared with June, when it had 374,000.
The number one on the fixed Internet services market, RCS&RDS is not listed on the stock market and does not publish data on the number of clients at regular intervals.
On the TV service market, the data provided by Romtelecom and UPC reveal that the number of new clients continued to go up in the fourth quarter or 2009 at a pace close the growth pace of the previous years.
UPC & Romtelecom are number two and three on the local TV service market, dominated by RCS&RDS, with over 2.5 million clients.
Demand for Internet services via fixed lines went down in the last quarter of last year compared with the previous years but maintained high, reveals a ZF analysis of the figures calculated by Romtelecom and UPC, two of the biggest players on this market.