11.10.2016

“I am glad to see the trends in the Romanian mobile services market: mobile calls are on an upward trend, especially off-net and in roaming throughout Europe, while the users’ preference for ”on-net” calls can hardly be noticed anymore. Moreover, there is an upsurge in the mobile internet uptake, especially using the 4G technology: the number of 4G connections had amounted to one quarter of the total number of mobile broadband internet connections, by mid-2016. The average monthly mobile internet traffic per connection almost doubled, compared to the same period of 2015. I expect the steady growth will continue in the mobile internet usage, and I believe that the average traffic per mobile internet connection will exceed 1 GB/month by the end of the year”, said the ANCOM President, Cătălin MARINESCU.

Mobile internet

95% was the mobile internet penetration rate in Romania on 30 June 2016, according to ANCOM’s most recent statistical data on the Romanian electronic communications market. On the same date, broadband mobile internet registered 14.8 million connections, i.e. a 75% penetration rate per 100 inhabitants (up by 10 p.p. compared to June 2015). The popularity of broadband mobile internet subscriptions is growing: these amounted to 65% of all the connections, up by more than 28% y.o.y., whereas prepaid card connections dropped by 3%, down to 5.2 million. Average monthly traffic per connection almost doubled compared to the first half of 2015, from 0.33 GB to 0.63 GB.

The demand for 4G services keeps growing, in respect both of the number of users and of the traffic volume. The number of 4G connections reached 3.7 million (compared to 1.4 million - 12 months before), thus exceeding one quarter of the total number of broadband mobile internet connections. Residential subscriptions (up by 1.3 million compared to end-June 2015) were the main generator of growth in the number of 4G mobile internet connections, whereas 4G business subscriptions increased by approximately 400,000. It is worth mentioning that 94% of the 4G connections used at mid-2016 se functioned by means of smartphones.

Mobile telephony

The number of active users of mobile telephony in Romania stagnated, on 30 June 2016, on the same level as at the end of H1 2015 – 22.6 million users. It is noteworthy that the number of subscription-based users kept growing up to 11.1 million, by 9% a year, while the number of active prepaid cards went down to 11.5 million. The mobile telephony penetration rate per 100 inhabitants reached 114.3% at mid-2016.

Despite the stagnating number of users, the total traffic achieved by them increased by 4% in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period of 2015, up to almost 36 billion minutes. The recent years’ growing trend in off-net traffic volume (+47%, up to 9.9 billion minutes) and in mobile-to-fixed traffic volume (+5%, up to 1.2 billion minutes), whereas on-net mobile traffic dropped by 9%, in the same reference period. Thus, the share of on-net mobile traffic decreased by 9 percentage points y.o.y, down to 63%, while the share of off-net mobile traffic increased by 8 p.p., up to 28%.

On average, a Romanian user speaks over the mobile phone 4 hours and 21 minutes a month, 8 minutes more than the average registered in the first half of 2015. Voice services are preferred by residential subscribers, who register an average monthly traffic of 5h 49’, followed by business subscribers – 4h 12’, while prepaid card users register an average monthly consumption of 3h 26’. The average duration of a call initiated from a mobile terminal in the first six months of 2016 increased to 2’ 40’’.

For the first time in Romania, the SMS traffic decreases, due to the growing uptake of mobile internet, which enables access to various applications, including text message ones. Therefore, in the first half of 2016, the users sent 9.5 billion SMS, almost 6% less than in the first period of 2015, approximately 80% of them being on-net. Thus, in the first half of 2016, a user sent, on average, 69 SMS a month.

Roaming

Concerning roaming mobile telephony, voice traffic keeps registering significant growth during the first 6 months of 2016, by 37.5%, compared to the same period of 2015, up to 685 million minutes (of which, 222 million from outgoing and 463 million from incoming calls), while the roaming SMS traffic increased by approximately 9%, up to 66 million SMS, compared to the same period of 2015. Data roaming consumption keeps the upward trend, reaching 387 thousand GB in the first half of 2016.

ANCOM’s Statistical data report on the Romanian electronic communications market in the first half of 2016 is based on the statistical data reported by the active electronic communications service providers that carried out commercial activities during 1 January – 30 June 2016 and will be available soon.