Vodafone Romania

Type	subsidiary of Vodafone
Founded	1997 as Connex GSM
Headquarters	Voluntari, Romania
Key people	Liliana Solomon, CEO
Industry	Mobile telecommunications
Website	www.vodafone.ro

Vodafone is Romania's second-largest mobile phone network operator^{[citation needed]}. It launched in April 1997 as the first GSM network in Romania (although not the first mobile phone network). Until October 2005, it was known as Connex, after which it was rebranded Connex-Vodafone and in April 2006, the Connex name was dropped, the operator being simply known as Vodafone Romania, aligning itself with the global Vodafone brand.

Vodafone covers 95% of the Romanian population, with over 8.23 million subscribers at June 30th 2007^[1] and 45% market share. Vodafone provides roaming agreements with 238 international operators in 103 countries.

Vodafone Romania is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vodafone Group plc, and is the seventh-largest Vodafone subisidiary in the world by number of subscribers. Vodafone became the majority stakeholder after it brought 79% of Mobifon's shares from Canadian company Telesystems International Wireless, which had been the previous majority shareholder. Furthermore it recently acquired 5% of Mobifon's shares from Canadian Entrepreneur Elani Grobler.

The operator is in head-to-head competition with Orange for the 15.3 million mobile telephony users in Romania. Connex, the ancestor of Vodafone Romania, held the largest number of subscribers until September 2004, when Orange edged ahead.

The motto of Vodafone is Trăieşte fiecare clipă (rendered in English by the company as Make the most of now, a more accurate translation would be "Live every moment"). Previous mottos were: Tu faci viitorul (You create the future) and Viitorul sună bine (The future sounds good).

[edit] Brands of Vodafone

Vodafone Romania (and Connex before it) used numerous others brands. They include:

• Xnet - an internet service providers, providing free unlimited dial-up for Connex mobile phone subscribers between 2000 and 2003. The brand is no longer used.
• myX - Romania's first mobile portal. Also used by the company for a short-lived venture in the fashion industry. The portal has been relabeled as Vodafone Live.
• myBanking - Mobile Banking service
• myDomain - domain name service
• homemade.ro - video sharing website

[edit] History

• 1998: SMS services introduced
• 1999: Xnet Internet service introduced; High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) technology introduced; mobile phones running on Connex donated to ambulance service of Oradea (first Romanian company to do so)
• 2000: WAP mobile Internet services launched
• 2001: myX, Romania's first mobile portal launched; SMS services such as dating, ringtones and logos are introduced; GPRS service launched

A former "Connex Center" rebranded as Vodafone in Iaşi, Romania.

• 2002: GPRS prepaid introduced; first company in Europe to introduce World Wide Number (WWN) facilities; mobile banking introduced in cooperation with Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR).
• 2003: myBanking introduced - a service in collaboration with Raiffeisen Bank, for customers to pay Connex bills and do banking automatically
• 2003: Connex Meeting Call introduced.
• 2005: 3G services based on W-CDMA introduced, giving way to video telephony and broadband internet via mobile phone.
• 2005: In partnership with RIM, Connex launches the first BlackBerry service in Romania.
• 2005: Liliana Solomon is named CEO of Connex.
• November 1, 2005: The name of the operator is changed to Connex-Vodafone.
• April 27, 2006: The name of the operator is changed to Vodafone Romania.

[edit] See also

• List of mobile network operators
• Communications in Romania

[edit] References

1. ^ [1], Vodafone Romania

[edit] External links

• Vodafone official site
• Vodafone to Acquire Control of MobiFon in Romania and Oskar in the Czech Republic