Makowski, Romtelecom: Despite signs of revival, market remains difficult

The no. 1 on the fixed telephony market counts on extending its IT services offer, a partnership with Dell, and on a tighter relationship with Cosmote in view of increasing market share, says the head of Romtelecom’s business division.

Communication services dedicated to companies will experience a new decline this year amid the “severe recession”, but competition over market share remains tight among the biggest telecom players, considering that customers are willing to change suppliers, acquire equipment and support services in order to streamline their costs, says George Makowski, manager of Romtelecom’s business division.
“Companies are looking at telecom bills, reassessing their expenditures, streamlining their costs. Big companies are cutting the number of fixed telephony lines, pondering whether they can do with 8 lines instead of 10. What we see on the market is that from the top 1,000 companies on the market through to the ministries and small companies, they are all cutting costs. Not just fixed phones, but also for mobile phones, everything gets cut,” explains the Romtelecom official.
The new wave of telecom budget cuts comes after a 2009 that saw the telecom market fall by 13% to 4 billion euros, after several years of uninterrupted growth.