February 13 (SeeNews) - The Romanian unit of France Telecom's Internet and mobile arm Orange recorded revenues of 1.112 billion euro ($1.213 billion) last year, compared with 1.125 billion euro in 2018, Orange said in a financial statement on Thursday.
During the fourth quarter alone, Orange Romania's revenues rose by 2.4% year-on-year, reaching 299 million euro ($326.4 million), Orange Romania said in a separate press release on Thursday.
Orange Romania said it had 10.941 million customers at the end of December, up 1.7% compared to end-2018.
Mobile Internet traffic surged by 37% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2019, supported by an increase in smartphone sales and investment in 4G and 4G+ networks, Orange Romania said.
At the end of 2019, the 4G Orange network covered 98.13% of Romania's entire population and 100% of the urban population.
TV services had 540,000 customers at the end of December, a 7% increase year-on-year. Fixed broadband services had 352,000 customers at the end of the fourth quarter, up 23% on the year.
The number of users of Orange Money, the operator's financial service app, rose by an annual 40% as at end-2019 - to 179,000.
"2019 was a year of innovation. With the launch of the Orange 5G network, we have made an important step towards the networks of the future and towards new digital technologies. We have built our own fiber optic network, which we are developing progressively, and we are proud to offer fixed services through our fiber optic network to our clients at high quality standards," Orange Romania CEO Liudmila Climoc said.
Romania’s market of just over 19 million people is served by five mobile operators - Orange Romania; Telekom Romania, former Cosmote Romania; RCS&RDS; Vodafone Romania; and insolvent 2K Telecom.
At group level, Orange posted revenues of 42.2 billion euro in 2019, up by 0.6% compared to the previous year.
($ = 0.9161 euro)
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