Vodafone Buys Romanian Mobile Phone Retailer
Vodafone Romania has brought the local mobile phone retailer, Proton Technologies which has so far been one of the major suppliers of customers to rival network, Orange. The retailer operates some 73 stores, mainly in Moldavia and will stop selling Orange services within the next few weeks.
"Proton stores will go through a rebranding process in the next few weeks, after which they will start to sell Vodafone products and services," Liliana Solomon, CEO of Vodafone, told ZF newspaper. The move boosts Vodafone's branded retail presence in the north of the country where it has traditionally been weak.
Proton is the third largest Orange dealer in the market, after the Fonomat and Euro-GSM retailers.
Vodafone is currently the second largest mobile operator in Romania, by subscriber numbers. According to figures from the Mobile World, the company ended last year with some 8.8 million customers which equates to a market share of 39%. Vodafone entered the market in March 2005 after it brought the former MobiFon-Connex network from majority shareholders, Telesystem International Wireless (TIW).
On the web: ZF - Mobile World
Posted to the site on 28th March 2008
