Orange Romania's nine-month revenues down 18.9%

Orange Romania, largest mobile telecom group in the country, reported 18.1% decline in revenues in the nine months through September this year to €800 million from €977 million in the year-ago period.

The telecom giant's revenues from Romania fell the most in third quarter this year, by 22.9% to €269 million.In Europe, the group's revenues fell 5.4%, largely weighed down by Orange Romania's poor performance in the period under review, France Telecom said in its quarterly financial report.

"The third quarter reversal was due to the change in revenues from Romania, which was heavily impacted by the economic downturn and strong competitive pressures", report said.

"Even though other indicators such as average monthly usage and number of clients came back on a positive trend, revenues are still under the pressures generated by the economic downturn, regulatory measures and reduction in tariffs, as a measure to meet residential and business clients' needs in times of economic crisis", said the CEO of Orange Romania, Thierry Millet .On September 30, 2009, Orange Romania had a customer base of 10,694,000, 4.8% more than a year earlier and 340,000 more than previous quarter.

"Our performance is in line with our priorities of increasing our customer base through service improvement offers and initiatives, coupled with the launch of franchises and development of the online channel", said Orange Romania.2,236,000 of Orange's total number of customers use the broadband mobile internet services, 95% more than a year ago.According to the company, the average annual revenues per user (ARPU) was €100.