Money Buzz! Europa

Tag: telekom

  • 97% of Romanians use a smartphone. Samsung is their favourite brand

    97% of Romanians use a smartphone. Samsung is their favourite brand

    In Romania there are over 26M mobile connections, 135.6% compared to the country’s population, and 97% of Romanians use a smartphone, according to Telekom.

    Samsung is the mobile phones brand used by the majority of the Telekom’s customers, which registered over half of the total options expressed (58.5%).

    In second place is Huawei, with a percentage of 20.9%, followed by Apple with 9.7% of preferences and Xiaomi with 4.2% of votes.

    Others use Nokia phones, Motorola, Oppo, HTC, LG, Allview, Asus, iHunt, Sony, Alcatel, Lenovo.

    When it comes to the period they use the mobile devices, over 40% of respondents said they have owned the current phone for two years or more.

  • Telekom MyAccount registered a 77% increase in the number of installations

    Telekom MyAccount registered a 77% increase in the number of installations

    Telekom Romania registered a 77% increase in the number of installations of the MyAccount management application in the second quarter of this year, compared to Q1 2020.

    This result was driven by the global trend of migration of customer interactions in the digital area, in the context of Covid-19, and by the implementation of new features in the MyAccount Telekom application.

    Main Telekom MyAccount reuslts

    • the number of electronic payments doubled in the second quarter of 2020 yoy;
    • the number of active users increased 2.5 times;
    • the number of new accounts doubled compared to the same period last year.

    The application enjoys the appreciation of users in Google Play and App Store. MyAccount Telekom has the highest rating (4.7 out of 5) among mobile applications of similar utilities providers.

    More than 80% of them awarded 5-star reviews in the second quarter of this year.

  • How coronavirus changed Romanians’ digital habits in the last month

    How coronavirus changed Romanians’ digital habits in the last month

    • 44% of Romanians pay their utilities invoices online and this is the habit they want to keep after the restrictions of circulations will end too;
    • Aprox. 35% of the respondents work from home;
    • Telemedicine has been adopted by 4% in just six weeks of social isolation, quite a good start.

    Telekom Romania ran a survey to figure how the consumers’ behaviour has changed and what will be the new consuming habits.

    Apps to work from home

    The enforcing of the state of emergency has significantly changed the working ways. According to the survey, over 34.7% of respondents work from home.

    They mainly use Skype to communicate with their teams (22,9% of respondents). The second place in popularity belongs to Zoom application with 20,6% of responses, followed by Microsoft Teams with 11.9%, Google Hangouts with 11.5%, Skype for business with 7.6% and WhatsApp with 5.6%.

    Facebook is the most used social platform

    When we talk about spending time on social networks, Facebook remains the preferred platform for 35.5% of respondents.

    In second place is YouTube (28.9%), then the other applications: Instagram (11.2%), TikTok (6%), Pinterest (4.8%), Reddit (4.7%), LinkedIn (4.2%), Snapchat (3.7%) and Twitter with (2.8%).

    Telecommunications services used in the current context

    The Internet is the most used communications service used by 38.6% of respondents. 34.4% of them use mobile telephony, 24.3% use television service and only 0.7% use fixed telephony.

    These behaviours are also visible in relation to Telekom services and products. In the first 2 weeks of April, the traffic on the telekom.ro site increased by 77%, compared to February of the same year.

    Online payments versus offline payments

    The circulation restrictions have led to the adoption of online payments for utility and service invoices.

    Thus, 44% of respondents pay all bills online, 30.7% online, but also physically, and 25.3% pay them only physically, because, in their opinion, this type of payment gives them security.

    Bare necessity online shopping versus bare necessity offline shopping

    According to Eurostat, in 2019, 23% of the population shopped online, and now even in the current general context, 55% of respondents continue to go shopping in physical stores, taking the protection measures recommended by the authorities, 27,1% made their supplies in time and do not go to the store so often, 25.3% do their shopping in physical stores, but also online and only 7.8% turned exclusively to suppliers to purchase their necessities.

    As a frequency, 43.4% go shopping once or twice a week, 38.5% less than once a week, 6.6% of respondents go shopping every day, 1.4% of 5-6 times a week and 10.1% 3-4 times a week.

    Half of those who responded to the survey mainly use a mobile phone to place an order, 42.2% use a laptop or desktop and only 7.4% use a tablet.

    The activities of spending time at home

    Among the activities at home, the online survey revealed that in the current general context: 72% of respondents said they spend their free time with family activities, 58% watch TV series and movies, 31% learn new things, 23% do sports at home, 11% run in the vicinity of the house and 7% have other activities.

    Medical non-emergencies

    A premiere that confirms the global trends is the gradual adoption of telemedicine, with 4% of respondents saying they use this way of caring for their personal health.

    For non-medical emergencies during this period, 61,1% of respondents said they use the advice of a family doctor, 23.9% wait until the restrictions are lifted to go to the doctor, 14.2% call the approved phone numbers, 11.8% use the medical application on the phone, 5.5% take protective measures and go to the hospital.

    Which of the digital habits do the Romanians intend to keep

    The respondents to the online survey also stated which are the digital habits they want to keep after the relaxation of the circulation restrictions: online payment of bills is also the digital habit that most Romanians would like to maintain in the future. (59% of respondents), followed by online shopping (42.7%) and 24.5% would like to keep in touch with doctors remotely (through applications or telemedicine).

  • Upward trend in revenues, profit and cash flow for Telekom Romania

    Upward trend in revenues, profit and cash flow for Telekom Romania

    Telekom Romania announced the main performance indicators for the fourth quarter of 2019, ended on the 31st of December 2019, according to the data released by OTE Group.

    For the full year 2019 all major financial indicators – Revenue, EBITDA and adjusted Free Cash Flow (FCF) showed a year-on-year growth for the first time in four years. In 2019 the consolidated revenues of Telekom Romania increased by 5%, to 980 mil. EUR. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA before IFRS16 increased by 5% to 144 mil. EUR, thus growing for four quarters in a row. Adjusted Free Cash Flow, corrected for one-off historical payments to OTE Group, also registered relevant growth of over 55 mil. EUR in 2019, becoming positive for the first time in three years.

    Revenue growth was fueled mostly by the company’s core business. Fixed revenues increased by 11% to 479 mil. EUR in 2019, supported by strong growth in the ICT segment, exceeding 110%, as well as that of wholesale services with more than 20%. At the same time, broadband & TV services registered a slight growth in revenues of more than 2%. FMC revenues have grown  yoy with approximately 30%. Additionally, the newly launched product Smart WIFI generated high demand.

    In mobile revenues, Telekom had 4 consecutive quarters of growth in 2019 reflected in the overall yearly growth, significantly driven by large ICT transactions in Q4.

    Costs declined by more than 3%

    On the cost side, compared to 2018, total OPEX (Operating Expenses) declined by more than 3% and shows a further improved run rate in Q4. This saving and the better cash flow are a direct effect of the company’s ongoing transformation program ”Cash for Growth”, which has driven a significant number of initiatives to successful completion.

    As part of this transformation process, the number of full time employees went down by 21% yoy from 6,356 in 2018 to 5,029 in 2019, through automation, simplification and focus on customer-facing units.

    Revenues: 289 mil. EUR

    The promising results for the full year 2019 also reflect a good performance of the last quarter of the year. In Q4 2019 the group’s consolidated revenues continued the upward trend from the previous quarters, reaching 289 mil. EUR, a 19% increase against Q4 2018, heavily driven by major ICT related projects.

    Adjusted EBITDA before IFRS 16 increased by 109% against Q4 2018, reaching 51.6 mil. euro in Q4 2019. This came as a result of improved top line and cost performance paired with a favourable comparison base

    The strategically important FMC segment continued to grow through 2019, recording a 72% yoy increase in revenues in Q4 2019, now totalling over 846,000 users and extending Telekom’s market leadership in this segment.

    Revenues from retail fixed services declined by 5% in Q4 2019 against Q4 2018, to 55.4 mil. EUR. This was driven by a declining customer base especially on the traditional fixed line voice and DTH business, which was only partially offset by an increase in Average Revenue per User (ARPU).

    1.3 mil. users for Telekom TV

    The TV services segment reached 1.3 mil. users in Q4 2019, an 8% decline – mainly on DTH – vs. Q4 2018, which was offset via diversified content packaging and an increase in ARPU, so that revenues stayed stable.

    The number of broadband service subscribers had a slight decline compared to Q4 2018, reaching 1.1 million users. Simultaneously, broadband revenues in Q4 2019 recorded an 8% increase against Q4 2018, which was the result of the company’s push towards higher-value customers, resulting in an increase in ARPU.

    Mobile services revenues further stabilized in Q4 2019 totalling 75 mil. EUR, with only a slight decrease of less than 1% over 2018, a result which supported the successful completion of a major ICT project. A positive trend can be seen on mobile data revenues, with a continued growth of 11% in Q4 2019 compared to Q4 2018.