Telecom group UPC Romania, the second-biggest player on the local cable TV market, saw an 8.8% increase in revenues, in 2016, to RON 689 million (EUR 153 million). The revenue increase reflected the growth in the number of clients on all of UPC’s business lines, namely cable and satellite TV, fixed broadband internet, and fixed telephony.

The company, which is owned by US group Liberty Global, saw a 6.9% growth in the number of service subscriptions up to 2.27 million, at the end of December 2016. The client base also went up by 4.2%, to almost 1.3 million people and companies.

On the cable TV segment, the company reached 903,900 subscriptions, up 2.3% year-on-year. On the satellite television services market, UPC recorded 363,500 contracts, up 3.7% year-on-year. This means that the total number of customers for the TV services of UPC increased by 2.7% to 1.26 million.

On the fixed internet segment, UPC saw an advance of 9.5% compared to December 2015, up to 535,400 subscriptions. The number of fixed telephony subscriptions also rose by 16.5% to 470,900.

The company’s strategy focused on expanding the coverage area by developing the network in different parts of the country. UPC’s network covered 2.84 million households in Romania at the end of 2016, up by 10% compared to December 2015.

UPC's main competitors are local group RCS&RDS and Telekom Romania, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. Orange Romania also started offering fixed telecom services last year, based on a network sharing agreement with Telekom. Smaller players on this market include Akta and iNES Group.

editor@romania-insider.com