Connex goes west

Connex, the leading mobile telephony operator on the Romanian market in terms of number of clients nine months through the year, began an aggressive expansion campaign on the Transilvanian market, which will take up $12 million investments in the next eight months.

“We are not the leading operator in Transilvania and we intend to change that,” Ted Lattimore, Connex President and Chief Operating Officer said.

The main goal of the strategy is to attract as many clients from this region as possible. The investment will be primarily aimed at expanding the coverage of the Connex network in Transilvania and Banat. Subsequently, the coverage in Transilvania will go from 87.7% in 2002 to 93.8% in 2004 and from 94.6% to 96.8% in Banat’s case.

To that end, Connex will be building another 160 stations (130 in Transilvania and 30 in Banat) over the next eight months. The investment will be fully funded from the company’s profit.

Connex was chosen Romania’s top gross profit maker ($132 million) in 2002.

“The coverage percentages are not sizeable, yet the effort will be, because of the landscape peculiarities in the area,” said Cantemir Ionescu, NetWork Operations Connex director.

Ted Lattimore did not say exactly how many clients Connex was expecting to gain in Transilvania over the next twelve months following the application of the new strategy. He said, however, that the strategy would be extended to other regions, as well.

“We are not number one in Transilvania yet because we have focused on building a quality network from the beginning, so that the big cities such as Bucharest, Constanta and others were our priorities,” he added.

At the moment, Connex derives about 25%-30% of its revenues from this region. The share will go up to reach some 30% at the end of next year.

Out the 120-150 integrated communication solution clients, 25% are in Transilvania.

By 2004, the company will have invested $1bn since its entry in Romania back in 1997. Its 2003 investment in Romania amounts to more than $100 million.

iuliana.susanu@zf.ro