Orange Romania, the country’s biggest telecom operator, posted a 3.1% increase in revenues in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period of 2015, this being the sixth consecutive quarter in which the company saw higher revenues. The turnover reached EUR 251.1 million in the three months ended September 30.

Moreover, Orange Romania reached 10.175 million clients at the end of September, up by 300,000 compared to the end of June, as the number of subscribers went up by 4.8%. This evolution was mainly driven by the convergent fixed-mobile services that Orange launched in over 90 cities in Romania, starting early-September.

Orange has a deal with competitor Telekom Romania which allows it to use Telekom’s fixed broadband infrastructure to offer convergent services to its customers. In exchange, Orange allows Telekom to use its 4G network, which covers 74% of Romania’s total population.

Although the higher number of clients came from the new converged services, Orange’s revenue growth was mainly due to higher revenues on the mobile data segment, which has been the most dynamic segment of the telecom market in recent years. The mobile internet traffic doubled and the 4G data traffic went up fourfold in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the same quarter of last year, according to Orange. The number of Orange clients who use 4G smartphones reached 1.9 million.

“The third quarter performance reflects the constant growth in mobile data usage, supported by the increasing appetite for connectivity, digital services, smartphones, and wearables,” said Liudmila Climoc, Orange Romania CEO.

Orange Romania’s revenues in the first nine months of this year reached EUR 727 million, up 4.3% compared to the same period of 2015.

editor@romania-insider.com