Romanian IT&C, worth more than 4bn euros

The Romanian IT&C sector registered growth of 20% last year. Software exports saw the same rate of growth, reaching 280 million euros.

Revenues cashed in from the IT&C industry last year accounted for 8% of GDP, amounting to around 4.1 billion euros, said the Minister of Communications and IT Zsolt Nagy. Overall, the IT&C industry posted growth above 20% in 2005, according to the official.

“Software exports went up 20%, hitting 280 million euros last year,” Nagy was quoted as saying by Mediafax, during a workshop organised by the Trade and Industry Chamber and the European Integration Ministry. The total volume of investments in the IT&C sector stood at 1.8 billion euros, not including direct investments, he also said. As regards to the number of Internet users, the total accounted for 28% of the national population in 2005. Though it is a quite high percentage, “there”s a long way to go until we reach the European average, of 38%,” the MCTI (Communications and IT Ministry) representative estimated.

The number of Internet connections will continue to rise this year. Especially concerning business customers, where most connections, 34% of the total, will be used this year in industry and construction, 31% within services firms, 26% in trade and 9% within banking and insurance companies, shows a report drawn up by the National Statistics Office.

On the telecom market, alternative operators are increasingly successful, with a rise of their market share to around 10% of the fixed telephony segment, at the end of 2005, representing more than 430,000 users, stated the vice-president of the National Communications Ruling Body (ANRC), Alexandrina Hartan.

The main alternative operators in this market are firms delivering fixed telephony services jointly with cable TV services, such as UPC Romania (which took over Astral Telecom) and RCS& RDS. “Amid an involution of the number of RomTelecom subscribers, alternative operators have managed to expand a degree of penetration of fixed telephony among natural persons,” explained Hartan. “In late June 2005, these operators owned 4.1% of the market,” she added, quoting preliminary data released by companies in this market. The report by OTE Greek group, the majority stakeholder in RomTelecom, shows that, at the end of the first half of last year, the Romanian operator handled 4.18m lines, compared with 4.33m lines in June 2004.

In June 2005, the new operators that entered the fixed telephony market reported a number of 185,000 subscribers. Overall, the number of fixed telephony subscribers stood at 4.35 million at the end of the first half of 2005. Also, the ANRC representative stated over 13.3m customers, 40% more compared with December 2004, used mobile telephony services.