In the first half of the year, the number of fixed phone subscribers decreased by 0.8 percent to 4 million while the number of mobile services users increased by 1.3 percent to 9.4 million compared to the same period of the last year, according to the Romanian Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) statistical data published on Monday.
The total number of active mobile phone users has reached 22.3 million, 1.4 percent less then mid-2013, while the number of fixed lines has dropped 1.9 percent to 4.6 million.
“The drop in numbers for active mobile phone users is caused by the annual 3.4 percent drop of pre-paid card users but at the same time we observe a steady increase for the number of subscribers”, according to a press release.
Although the total number of active users has decreased, the degree of mobile services usage is growing. The decrease of active users was reflected in the shrinking penetration rate for mobile phone services in Romania from 112.3 percent per 100 inhabitants in June 2013 to 110.7 percent per 100 inhabitants in June 2014. Voice traffic is up 5.3 percent year-on-year to 33.2 billion minutes.