Pay TV subscribers in Romania up 3% in 2018

Wednesday, May 15th, 2019
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Romanians buy more TV subscriptions and talk less on the phone

“The number of TV service subscriptions keeps growing so now we have 7.64 million of such subscribers. The national traffic on the telephone networks is slightly decreasing, while the roaming traffic is growing due to the benefits of Roam like at home. We could conclude that telephony alone can no longer satisfy our communication needs, as we are using an ever-higher number and wider range of communication means, such as the apps and the social networks”, Mr. Sorin Grindeanu, the president of ANCOM (Autoritatea Națională pentru Administrare și Reglementare în Comunicații), said.

TV retransmission

At end-2018 the number of subscribers to paid TV retransmission services grew by 3%, reaching a total number of 7.64 million. The trend registered in the previous years continued in 2018, some subscribers shifting from satellite – DTH (-5%) to cable (+6%) or IPTV (+13%).

Romania Pay TV 2018 infographic

Considering that residential users usually purchase certain services per dwelling (TV retransmission, fixed internet, fixed telephony), another indicator that could express this penetration rate is the penetration rate per 100 dwellings. According to the official data, in Romania there are currently about 7.5 million households compared to 9 million dwellings, so, whereas the penetration rate per 100 households of the TV retransmission services was 102%, the rate per 100 dwellings reached 85%. The penetration rate per 100 households was 106% in urban area and 97% in rural area, while the penetration rate per 100 dwellings stood at 91% in urban area, respectively 77% in rural area.

Last year, in the urban area, the TV services were received mainly via cable networks (83% of the subscribers), while in the rural area the DTH satellite networks (50%) and cable networks (49%) were used in almost equal shares. Based on the number of subscribers at the end of 2018, the leader on this market held 49% share, the main competitor 19%, the other providers summing up 32%.

Mobile telephony evolution

At end-2018, there were 22.7 million active mobile telephony users in Romania, slightly up by 1%. Among these, 12.7 million (+5%) were post-paid users and 9.9 million (-4%) were prepaid users.

The total voice traffic on mobile networks dropped a little in 2018 (-1%), to 68 billion minutes. The monthly average registered by an inhabitant in 2018 amounted to 4 hours and 49 minutes and 57 sent SMS.

Upon the enforcement of the Roaming Regulation, the use of roaming services intensified. The roaming call traffic grew by 58% compared to 2017, the incoming call traffic grew by 28%, the SMS traffic by 23%, whereas the most significant increase, by 149%, was registered by the data/internet traffic. Based on the number of SIM cards active at the end of last year, the market leader held 39% market share, the main competitor 30%, the other providers summing up 31%.

Fixed telephony evolution

The fixed telephony market continues to register decreases in both number of access lines (-6%, to 3.66 million) and traffic (-17%, to 2.3 billion minutes). Because of these evolutions, the average fixed telephony traffic registered by an inhabitant in a month in 2018 amounted to only 10 minutes, down by 17% compared to the previous year.

Based on the number of subscribers at the end of 2018, the market leader held 43% market share, the main competitor 36%, the other providers summing up 21%.

Statistical data report

The statistical data report on the Romanian electronic communications market in 2018 has been drawn up by ANCOM based on the statistical data reported every semester by the providers that have the obligation to submit to ANCOM the values of the indicators corresponding to the service categories pursuant to Decision no. 333/2013.