Press Releases

4G Connections Grew Five Times in one Year

10.12.2015
 
“Broadband mobile internet kept growing steadily in Romania in the first half of 2015, this type of connection reaching 12.7 million, up by 2.3 million compared to mid-2014, according to the most recent statistical data processed by ANCOM. Though foreseen, the over 400% year-on-year growth of 4G internet access connections used at least once in the past 6 months is remarkable - from 253 thousand at the end of H1 2014 to more than 1.3 million, at mid-2015”, ANCOM’s Executive Director, Eduard Lovin, declared at the 12th edition of the Mobile Communications Gala.
In the first half of 2015, there were 12.7 million broadband connections (EDGE, CDMA, EV-DO, 3G, 4G) in Romania, up by 22% year-on-year.  Out of these, 7.4 million were subscription-based and 5.3 million – based on prepaid cards. The overall majority of the 2.3 million new broadband mobile internet connections (2 million) are subscription-based, only 0.3 million being provided based on prepaid cards.
Along the number of connections, the high-speed internet penetration rate was on the rise as well, reaching 64.2 per 100 inhabitants, by 12 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2014. Using mobile connections, the Romanians achieved traffic of 38.4 thousand TB, in H1 2015, by 87% more compared to the same period of 2014. Actually, comparing the two periods, the average monthly traffic per connection went up from 0.24 GB to 0.39 GB, which reveals a more intensive use of mobile internet services.
The mobile telephony sector also registered an upward trend as regards the number of active users, which reached 22.7 million (+1.8% compared to mid-2014), as well as regarding the voice or SMS traffic. Moreover, one can notice that the users turn towards subscriptions, to the detriment of prepaid services. Thus, the number of subscription-based mobile telephony users saw an annual growth by 7.8%, up to 10.1 million, while the number of active prepaid cards dropped by 2.5%, down to 12.6 million.
The users kept heavily relying on mobile telephony services, so that the corresponding traffic for H1 2015 increased by 3.4% compared to H1 2014, to 34.4 billion minutes. This increase is due to off-net mobile traffic, which rose by 68%, to 6.6 billion minutes, as well as to the growing traffic to international and satellite networks by 73%, up to 1.6 billion minutes. On the other hand, the reported data show that on-net minutes dropped by 8.2%, to25 billion, in H1 2015, compared to H1 2014. Mobile-to-fixed traffic stayed on the same level as last year - 1.1 billion minutes.
For the first time, in H1 2015, the voice traffic achieved by subscription-based users exceeded the traffic achieved by means of prepaid cards, reaching 53% of the total traffic. 41% of the traffic was achieved by residential users, 12% - by business users, and 47% by prepaid card users.
Concerning SMS traffic, over 10 billion SMS were sent in H1 2015, by 3.6% more than in H1 2014. The average call duration was 2 minutes and 40 seconds in H1 2015, while the average monthly voice traffic achieved by an active user was 4 hours and 11 minutes, by 6 minutes longer than the one registered in H1 2014. A user sent, on average, 73 SMS per month.
Regarding roaming services, voice traffic doubled compared to the same period of 2014, up to 498 million minutes. The biggest annual growth was registered on the level of outgoing calls (+156%, up to 166 million minutes). Incoming calls amounted to 333 million minutes, by 89% more compared to the same period of 2015. The average durations of outgoing and incoming calls witnessed an upsurge, i.e. the average duration of an outgoing call went up to 3 minutes and 5 seconds, from 1 minute and 58 de seconds, while the average duration of an incoming call increased by more than 1 minute, up to 3 minutes and 59 seconds. In H1 2015, 61 million SMS were sent in roaming.  
Further information is available in the statistical data report, drawn up based on the statistical data reported by the providers of electronic communications networks and services that were active in H1 2015.
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