Orange Romania, $157 million richer

Orange Romania concluded 2003 with 50% growth in customer base and 42% higher turnover in dollars.

The operator, one of the leading mobile telephony service providers in Romania, had come to total 3.3 million clients by December 31, 2003, 1.1 million more than the year before. The turnover progressed from $370 million to $527 million over the last twelve months.

Company representatives say “Orange had the highest growth rate among mobile telephony operators in Romania in 2003.” Orange Romania’s investments went up 74% in their turn from $72 million in 2002 to $126 million in 2003. The company did not officially disclose its profit figures for 2003, but Bernard Moscheni, Orange Romania’s CEO told Ziarul Financiar the “margin is beyond 20%,” without going into further details. Orange Romania logged gross profit of 102 million euros in 2002.

The company began operating on the Romanian market as Mobil Rom in 1997 and underwent rebranding in April 2002. The operator is 67.81% held by parent company Orange, France Telecom’s mobile telephony arm. The rest of capital is held by investment funds, the most important of which is AIG New Europe Fund.

The company, one of the largest in Romania, is worth $1.5bn, Bernard Moscheni states.

Orange attained the 3 million client threshold on October 31, with 300,000 more additions made from that point on through the end of last year. A report published by Orange France that month was saying its Romanian unit had logged 336 million euro turnover for the first nine months of last year. Orange Romania in its turn was announcing $424 million revenues for the first ten months of 2003.

“We anticipate to make $630-$650 million turnover in 2004, up about 20% from 2003, due to the increase in the number of users and their consumption, as well as to the trends that are still favourable to mobile telecommunications development in Romania,” Bernard Moscheni said.

The officials hope to see this year end with more than 4 million clients for Orange. The investments scheduled for 2004 amount to $110 million and will be primarily directed to the technical development of the network and to new services and technologies.

The operator is ready to buy a third generation mobile telephony licence in case the Communications Ministry holds the auction this year. Until such time comes, Orange is set to release the EDGE (Enhanced Data for Mobile Evolution) services that allow for higher-speed data traffic than GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) does. iuliana.susanu@zf.ro