Mobile telephony operator Vodafone lost 3.1 percent of its customers in Romania in the last three months of 2011, compared to the previous quarter, leaving 8.3 million customers end -2011, the company has announced. The company lost 269,000 customers mostly in the prepaid SIM segment during the third quarter, and a total of 1.5 million customers in 2011.

“Our prepaid SIM numbers are significantly lower as we stopped all free SIM distribution activity, which artificially inflated the customer base. Going forward, we will continue to make sure that we concentrate on giving more value to our customers rather than artificially inflating customer numbers,” said Inaki Berroeta, CEO Vodafone Romania.

The company managed to achieve growth on the mobile data side, where the number of customers was up 77 percent quarter on quarter and by 75 percent year on year. Mobile Internet revenues increased by 33 percent quarter on quarter, and by 58 percent year on year.

The mobile Average Revenue per User (ARPU) was EUR 7.3 for the quarter ended on December 31, 2011, a growth of 1.4 percent compared to previous quarter and of 9.3 percent year on year.

By December 31, 2011, contract subscribers accounted for 41 percent and prepaid for 59 percent  of Vodafone Romania’s total customer base. The telecom company reported 4.5 billion voice minutes used by its clients during the last quarter of 2011.

“We are happy with our financial results for the past quarter which are in line with our expectations. We see a positive trend in our performance overall and a strong data growth, both in customers and revenue,” said Inaki Berroeta.

Full report here. 

editor@romania-insider.com