Regulator says most users are opting for Digi
The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) said that more than 775,000 phone numbers were ported in the first half of the year with Digi (RCS & RDS) picking up the bulk of these – 464,189 numbers were ported to this network.
Vodafone received 135,022 numbers through porting, Orange got 79,990, Telekom Romania Mobile Communications 53,633, and Orange Romania Communications 12,758. Of the 745,595 mobile phone numbers ported during this period, 58% were subscription-based numbers. Most numbers were ported by individual subscribers.
Ancom said that in total, since the launch of portability in 2008, more than 10 million phone numbers have changed operator, with 9.4 million of these being mobile numbers.
While 96% of the ported numbers were mobile, the regulator said in the first half of 2023, 29,513 fixed telephone numbers were ported. Most of the ported fixed telephone numbers were divided as follows: Digi (RCS & RDS) got 13,095, Orange with 8,188 and Vodafone was at 2,550.
Of the 29,513 fixed numbers ported in the first half of this year, 27,784 were geographic numbers and 1,729 were location-independent numbers. One third of the ported geographical landline numbers were understandably in Bucharest and Ilfov.
The rise of Digi
The numbers indicate Digi’s rising market strength. In May the telco became the largest mobile provider in Romania, holding 37.8% marketshare (below, source: Ancom). It also now has the largest voice footprint covering 98.8% of the total population of Romania. Digi said it has now managed to attract more than 4.9m mobile connections to port to its network.
In its recent Q1 results in May, the company – which operates in Spain and Italy, with a presence in Portugal and Belgium – increased its consolidated revenues 11% for the Group year-on-year, hitting €399m. Adjusted EBITDA marked an increase of 7.5% compared to the result in the first quarter of 2022, reaching €134m.
Groupwide the company has more than 21.6m subscribers – or as Digi calls them, revenue generating contractual relationships (RGUs) – up 16% YoY. Of that, mobile is the largest and fastest growing segment reaching 9.6m RGUs at group level.
In Romania, Digi hit 5.2m RGU in mobile (up 19.1% YoY), fixed internet was 4.3m RGU (up 11.2% YoY), while PayTV was up 6.2% YoY reaching 5.5m RGUs. Spain saw a whopping 68% increase in fixed users to 1.3m RGUs. The number of mobile users increased significantly (up 26% YoY) and reached a total of 4m RGUs.
The Group’s Portugal and Belgium (in association with Citymesh NV ) subsidiaries are still building out infrastructure ahead of service launches.