Orange Romania's turnover down 2.4 percent in the second quarter to EUR 268.5 million

Orange Romania posted a turnover of EUR 268.5 million in the second quarter of the year, down 2.4 percent over the same period last year, mainly due to the change in interconnection tariffs for mobile voice calls Termination Rates) and a slight decrease in equipment sales compared to the second quarter of 2018.

On June 30, 2019, Orange Romania offered mobile, fixed and TV services to 10,736,700 customers, up approximately 2 percent compared to the end of Q2 2018. Fixed services continued the positive evolution in previous quarters. Thus, at the end of June, Orange Home TV’s cable and satellite television service numbered over 528,000 customers, up 17 percent over Q2 2018, and fixed broadband services had 317,700 customers, up 35 percent compared to the same period in 2018.

Network

Orange continued to invest in infrastructure this quarter, with the pace of expanding 4G coverage remaining steady. Thus, at the end of June, 97.15 percent of the country’s population and 100% of the urban population had access to the largest 4G network in Romania. Orange also offered in the second quarter additional 4G + connectivity for nearly 1.5 million Romanians. At the end of June, residents in over 1,000 new localities and cities had access to speeds of up to 500 Mbps, with 4G + coverage reaching 51.98% of the country’s population.

The quality of the network was again certified by the independent system auditor PAB, which declared Orange as the best-quality voice and internet service network, following the measurement campaign conducted between April and May 2019 in the most populated 22 cities in the country, as well as connecting roads. The results for call performance are attributed to both the high percentage of successful calls and their quality, largely due to the 4G Call (VoLTE) service. In the case of mobile data, the first place was attributed to the Orange network for download speed and ease of browsing the most visited websites in Romania.

Mobile customers’ appetite generated a 40% increase in consumption in Q2 2019 compared to Q2 2018. Also, 4G traffic grew to about 82% of total traffic generated.

The increased interest in digital services is also visible from the way customers choose to interact with Orange. Following the release of Djingo’s virtual assistant, in the first half of 2019 he held 9 times more conversations with clients than in the last half of 2018. Currently, the virtual assistant has the ability to solve approximately 33 percent of the volume of requests from customers in the online environment.

Mobile financial services

After the first quarter of Visa Contactless Visa debit cards, physical and virtual, pay with the NFC technology and pay with the smart Fitbit or Garmin watch in June and Apple Pay became available to Orange Money customers. With Apple Pay on iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Mac, customers can now make payments in any country, in shops, restaurants, taxis, and wherever there is a POS contactless terminal.

As a result of developments in Orange Money, the number of users increased by 37 percent in Q2 2019 compared to Q2 2018, reaching over 141,000 customers on June 30, 2019.

“In a market that is becoming more and more competitive, our efforts are focused on delivering the best converged customer services, integrated IT & C solutions for businesses, the growth of the mobile financial services segment and the development of digital skills and the Agile working method in teams. Continuous network investments are a foundation for all of this. Moreover, they create the premises of an ultramodern digital system and provide access to new development opportunities in society, while opening the way to new services that can be developed on such an infrastructure, “said Liudmila Climoc, CEO of Orange Romania.