German group Deutsche Telekom is making its official entry on the Romanian market by launching the “T” brand, which will replace the Romtelecom and Cosmote brands. Up until now, Deutsche Telekom’s presence in Romania has only been a formal one, given its indirect ownership in Romtelecom and Cosmote, via Greek group OTE. With this rebranding, the German group ups its interest in the Romanian market, which becomes one of the key markets of the “T” family.

“Adding Romania to the Magenta map is a natural step in the evolution of Deutsche Telekom’s footprint in Europe. As a leading telecommunications provider in Europe, we bring our expertise and ability to the Romanian market. We are highly committed to Telekom Romania and will make a significant contribution to the Romanian society,” said Claudia Nemat, Board Member Europe and Technology at Deutsche Telekom.

“In Europe, Romania becomes our third largest market in terms of population, after Germany and Poland,” she added.

Currently, one in two Romanians is using either Romtelecom or Cosmote Romania services, but starting Saturday, September 13, they will become Telekom Romania customers, the group’s representatives announced.

This transition has been prepared in the last five years with investments of EUR 1 billion made in Romania by Romtelecom and Cosmote, which now make it one of the most important contributors to Deutsche Telekom’s European business. “We are the number one market for Deutsche Telekom in terms of TV subscribers, and number two in terms of internet clients,” said Nikolai Beckers, CEO of Telekom Romania Communications and Telekom Romania Mobile Communications.

Deutsche Telekom’s main goal is to become the largest telecom and entertainment services provider on the local market, which is a challenging one, Beckers added.

This is not only the biggest rebranding ever made in the Romanian telecom sector, but also the official unification of the services provided by Romtelecom and Cosmote in one single package. The new service packages will include all the services that the two companies have dso far delivered separately, which are fixed line telephony, TV, and fixed line internet, for Romtelecom, and mobile voice and data services, in the case of Cosmote.

Nikolai Beckers, CEO of Telekom Romania Communications:“Starting tomorrow, our customers will have one single bill, one site to present all our services, one single contact number for all our services."

Beckers also introduced the new service package concept, which is 4 times unlimited communication and entertainment. The new combined packages start from EUR 20 a month and go up to EUR 99 a month. The largest package includes three mobile subscriptions, a TV package with up to 126 channels, fixed internet with up to 100 Mbps speed and a mobile internet plus voice services. This package also includes three Samsung Galaxy Trend Lite smartphones and one Samsung Galaxy TAB4 T335 tablet. These new packages will be available in the 43 corporate shops that have already been rebranded as T-shops.

Deutsche Telekom’s representatives didn’t reveal anything about their financial plans or when they will merge all their operations under one company. From this perspective, things are more complicated, as in Romtelecom, which now becomes Telekom Romania Communications, the Romanian state still holds 46% of the shares, while Deutsche Telekom has 54%, via OTE. Cosmote Romania, which will change name to Telekom Romania Mobile Communications, is 70% owned by Greek OTE, while Romtelecom holds a 30% stake in the company.

Last year, Romtelecom had revenues of EUR 610 million and an operational profit (EBITDA) of EUR 148 million, while Cosmote Romania had revenues of EUR 459 million and EUR 119 million EBITDA. Combined, the two companies would have revenues of over EUR 1 billion, which would make Deutsche Telekom the largest player on the Romanian Telekom market.

Its main competitors are Orange Romania and Vodafone Romania, on the mobile services segment, as well as RCS&RDS and UPC Romania, on the fixed internet, TV and fixed voice services. In recent years, all these companies have tried to diversify their services portfolios by adding what they lacked before.

For example, Orange launched Orange TV and RCS&RDS launched mobile voice and data services. However, Telekom Romania will now have some of the most diversified packages on the market, which should further strengthen the competition on the market.

Here are a few photos from the press conference which marked Telekom's launch in Romania:

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com