Vodafone signs partnership with Fonomat, former largest Orange dealer

Telecom operator Vodafone has recently signed an agreement with local telecom dealer Fonomat, which used to be a dealer for competitor Orange until April this year and which will now become an exclusive Vodafone dealer. Fonomat, which runs 167 stores in Romania, will still run under its existing brand but will change the signage in its stores accordingly in the following period. Fonomat's shareholder in private equity fund GED, which bought four GSM retail companies – Dasimpex, Plus GSM, GSM Land and Puls and re-united them under a new brand. Fonomat used to be the largest Orange dealer since April 2008. Orange decided to give up on its partnership with Fonomat, choosing to focus on its own stores, under the Orange Shop brand, the franchised store named Orange Store, as well as on the partnerships with Euro GSM and Say. Vodafone, the second largest mobile telephony operator in Romania, posted EUR 921 million in total revenues in the fiscal year ending this March, down 21 percent on the similar period of last year. Vodafone has 9.7 million customers in Romania. Orange Romania posted EUR 1.05 billion in revenues last year, down 19.5 percent on the previous year. At the end of last year, the operator had 10.9 million customers, out of 21.5 million, which is the total Romanian population.