Vodafone sees 14% decline in revenues for Romania, fewer clients

British telecom group Vodafone saw its revenues in Romania declining to GBP 129 million (some EUR 160 million) in the first quarter of the 2014-2015 fiscal year (April to June 2014), which is 14 percent lower, in nominal terms, than in the same period of the previous year, according to the group’s quarterly report. These are the lowest quarterly revenues for Vodafone in Romania in nine quarters, the report shows. The group said that the revenues decline on a comparable basis (organic) was of 9.8 percent. The company said that excluding the regulatory moves in Romania, meaning the drop in interconnection tariffs by 69 percent starting April 1, 2014, Vodafone’s service revenues increased by 2.6 percent compared to the same period last year, according to a company statement quoted by Mediafax. However, the group’s quarterly report shows that Vodafone continued to lose customers, for the second consecutive quarter, going under the 8 million threshold. End-June 2014 the company had 7.9 million clients for mobile services, some 200,000 fewer than at the end of April and 329,000 fewer than at the end of December 2013. An extra 56,000 customers were reported for fixed broadband services. The volume of services used by Vodafone’s Romanian customers increased on all segments. Voice usage was up by 4 percent compared to the previous quarter (q-o-q) and by almost 10 percent compared to the same quarter last year (y-o-y), to almost 5.5 billion minutes. The message usage was up by 1 percent q-o-q and 37 percent y-o-y. Also, the data usage increased by 7 percent q-o-q and by 57 percent y-o-y. Still, the average revenue per user declined to an average EUR 5.9 per month in the quarter ended June 2014, from EUR 6.3 in the previous quarter and EUR 6.5 in the same period last year. The full report from Vodafone is here. Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com