Orange Romania, the largest telecom carrier in Romania, said its first-quarter revenues dropped 10.2% to €237 million, from €264 million year-ago period.

However, revenues decline in the trailing quarter was slighter than a year earlier, when the telecom operator reported 20% drop to €1.055 billion.

Orange's number of customers dropped in the first quarter to around 10.8 million users, from 10.99 million users at the end of 2009, but grew 7% from the same period of last year.

The average revenue per user (ARPU) stood at €88.

"The increase in contract customer base, reflecting the impact of customer retention initiatives that have reduced the number of terminations during the period, as well as the stabilization of revenues are the indicators that marked the performance of the company in the first quarter of 2010, despite the seasonal effects of the period. The improvement of month-on-month revenues confirm the economic stabilization outlook for this year", said Thierry Millet, CEO Orange Romania.

The number of broadband customers rose 40% year-on-year to 2,641,000.

Data services accounted for 13.8% of first-quarter network revenues, up from 12.4% a year earlier.