STUDY BY A.T.KEARNEY: The Romanian telephony market is not ready for strategies applied on a global level

The development of the domestic telephony market is being spurred by the recent moves made by "Cosmote" (the acquisition of "Telemobil" and the merger with "Romtelecom"), as well as by the consolidation of the cable industry and by the potential consequences of the announced asset optimizations of "France Telecom", which is present in Romania through "Orange" and "Deutsche Telecom", which is present on the market via "Romtelecom" and "Cosmote", a study made by "A.T. Kearney" shows: "After a long period of rapid growth, Romania is still facing a delayed impact of the crisis and shows no immediate signs of a recovery. The telecom market was particularly affected, and has been on the decline for the last two years, due to the shrinking of the income of its customers, of the average earnings per user and of the adoption of alternative services ".

The global strategy and the lessons that the multinationals learned in other markets can not be fully applied on the Romanian market, since our environment is different and is changing, the study says. Still, it is essential for the operators present on the Romanian market to be prepared for a detailed analysis that would provide answers to the potential challenges that could take place on a macroeconomic and competition level.

The mobile telephony market saw its earnings shrink, over the last two years, from 2.56 billion Euros, in 2007, to 2.25 billion Euros - last year"s estimates.

The number of mobile telephony users stagnated over the last two years. The average earnings per user has been shrinking lately, due to an intensification of competition.

According to the study, some of the market moves which are being announced, include the officially announced merger between "Cosmote" and "Romtelecom", as well as the recently announced potential exchange of assets between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom and their consolidation on some of the markets, including Romania. Also, RCS&RDS will most likely continue to consolidate on the CATV television market, by integrating their cable and mobile telephony services.