Liliana Solomon, Vodafone: We will explore the likelihood of various crisis scenarios

“In 2009, we will face the impact of regulatory decisions on our earnings, ballooned by the shaky and unpredictable economic conditions. Therefore, our strategy is well-adjusted to these stormy times, and we take into consideration the likelihood of many crisis scenarios. Our top priority is company-wide efficiency, in order to keep the cash-flow strong enough to be able to invest in our network, new services and products, in broadband mobile data”, Liliana Solomon, Chief Executive Officer at Vodafone Romania told Wall-Street.

The economic climate, she notes, will play an important role in the evolution of all industries, including in telecommunication market, thus it is hard to estimate its trend throughout this year.

The voice traffic increased by 11% in third quarter for Vodafone compared to a year earlier.

“As the earning report reveals, the mobile voice traffic in Vodafone Romania network was 3.036 billion minutes, in quarter ending in December 31 2008, compared to 2.778 billion minutes a year earlier, that is a significant y/y growth. In our opinion, the increase of the traffic volume was stimulated by the promotions we’ve launched at the end of last year”, Liliana Solomon added.

The mobile carrier reported a merely 1% growth in third quarter last year compared to Q3 2007, when the company recorded a two-digit advance.

“Our financial results for third quarter ending in December 31 2008 reflects the fiercer market competition, economic slowdown and the regulatory decisions in the Romanian telecommunication industry”, said Liliana Solomon.

The average revenue per user reached 10.10 euros in third quarter, down by roughly 10% compared to a year earlier, when the ARPU was amounting 11.08%.

The company added 133,461 new clients in their customer database in third quarter, which now accounts for 9,649,709 users, with annual increase of 728,856 clients in 2008.

The clients using Vodafone’s 3G service reached 1,134,894 at December 31 2008, up by roughly 89% compared to a 604,000 a year earlier.

“Vodafone Romania continues to register a sustainable growth in mobile data and mobile internet service, as a result of our strategy of investing in this service array. In the last 12 months, we have recorded a significant expansion (19%) of our subscriber database, as well as a fast growth in 3G user portfolio”, Liliana Solomon pointed out.