Vodafone loses 2 million mobile clients in Romania in one year, mostly prepaid

Vodafone Romania, a key player in the local telecom sector and part of the British Vodafone Group, recorded 6.57 million mobile service customers at the end of June 2024, down from 8.6 million a year ago and 9.6 million in June 2022, according to the parent group’s quarterly report. The decline was primarily due to a decrease in prepaid users.

Vodafone Romania had a 60% share of subscription contracts at the end of the quarter, compared to only 47% a year ago. Average revenues per user (ARPU) also increased by 23.5% year-on-year, from EUR 5.1 in Q1 2023 to EUR 6.3 in Q1 2024.

Mobile data consumption also grew by 11% year-over-year, reaching 227,644 TB in Q1 2024.

Between June 2023 and June 2024, Vodafone Romania lost 1.9 million prepaid clients and 107,000 contract clients, according to the disclosed data. Most of this drop occurred between January and March 2024, when the company's number of prepaid clients dropped by 1.4 million and the number of contract clients went down by 117,000.

In the quarter ended June 30, 2024, Vodafone Romania lost 723,000 prepaid clients but gained 17,000 contract clients.

The drop in prepaid customers was partly compensated by a 39.7% increase in average revenues per user (ARPU) for prepaid deals to EUR 2.8 in Q1 2024, according to Vodafone. The average monthly revenue per customer (ARPU) for the subscription contracts segment also rose by 2.5% to EUR 8.8.

Fixed internet users slightly declined to 694,000 from 713,000 a year ago.

Vodafone Group no longer reports individual country revenues.

In 2023, Vodafone Romania reported a turnover of EUR 1.07 bln, its best result since 2008 and 13% higher than in 2022. However, the company also recorded losses of EUR 36 mln for the fourth year in a row, according to public data from the Finance Ministry.

In multiple press statements, Vodafone Romania's management emphasized that the entire company is in the process of transitioning from a telco to a major IT&C player, with Vodafone being an integrated provider of IoT and ICT solutions. In addition, every year, Vodafone Romania invests over EUR 200 million in 5G infrastructure development.

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