Biggest telecom group in Romania sees 10% business drop in Q2 due to the pandemic

Orange Romania, the country’s biggest telecom group, recorded a turnover of EUR 242 million in the second quarter of this year, down by 10% compared to the same period of 2019. The negative evolution was driven by a “significant drop” in equipment sales and a “moderate decline” in service revenues, amid the COVID-19 crisis, the company said in a press release.

Orange Romania had 10.54 million clients at the end of June 2020, down 1.8% compared to the same moment of last year.

“The first six months of this year were among the most difficult in the last decade, in which connectivity has become essential, both for consumer customers and for company customers. But they taught us an important lesson: we can do things better, more efficiently, digitally,” said Liudmila Climoc, CEO of Orange Romania.

“The need for digital transformation brought by the pandemic was the locomotive of some radical changes, partly anticipated, partly imposed by the new socio-economic context. Digital solutions, online transactions, and digital payments were the ones that registered perhaps the strongest evolution, an increase even up to 5 times higher, as is the case of transactions via Orange Money. This accelerated evolution in the digital area is supported by network performance,” she added.

In the unprecedented context generated by the COVID-19 crisis, the Orange Money service recorded a record number of transactions, exceeding 1 million transactions in the second quarter of this year, five times more than in Q2 2019. The Orange Money user base recorded an increase of 58% in Q2 2020 compared to Q2 2019, reaching over 222,000 customers on June 30, 2020.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / Marius Dumbraveanu)