Richard Moat, CEO Orange Romania: Good results, growth rate decrease in 2008

Orange Romania recorded an income of 349 million Euros in the third quarter of 2008, 7% more than in Q3 2007, the number of active users growing 10%, up to 10.2 millions. Despite the results, the Orange Romania CEO, Richard Moat, says that the growth rate slowed down this year, as a result of the lower prices for calls and roaming services. The trend may continue in 2009 because of the general economic slowdown.

Moat expects the decrease in mobile telephony income to be compensated by the mobile data services growth rate.

According to the data published by France Telecom, the income of Orange Romania increased 8% compared to the first three quarters of 2007, up to 977 million Euros. The launching of the iPhone 3G terminal in Romania, Slovakia, Belgium and Switzerland led to a growth of the number of broadband users. In Romania, Orange now has 1.14 million broadband users, 127% more than in 2007.