Cosmote Romania and Romtelecom plan to adopt a single brand for their fixed and mobile services from mid-September in a move that will better reflect the companies' links to the Deutsche Telekom group and flag the arrival of new, converged offerings on the market.
The two companies said on their Facebook pages that they are in a transition process that will ultimately lead to the adoption of the Telekom Romania brand.
"After the completion of the project, all products and offerings will continue and will be gradually replaced by products under the brand 'T'," the companies added.
The move will highlight the strong links that the companies have to Deutsche Telekom: the German operator says on its web site that it holds 54.01 per cent in Romtelecom via OTE and 70 per cent in Cosmote Romania, also via the Greek operator.
Romtelecom offers services typical of an incumbent operator such as fixed voice and broadband, and Cosmote Romania provides mobile offerings including LTE services. While the two companies have tended to cross-sell each other's services in the past, there has been little in the way of convergent offerings. The move to adopt a united brand looks set to change that, however.
According to the Romanian-language Wall Street site, the 43 company stores will be renovated this year to reflect the new brand identity, offering fixed and mobile services from a single source. Customer services will also be changed to allow subscribers to receive support from one call centre and one web site.
The move towards a greater level of convergence also follows a general trend in Europe that has seen mobile operators such as Vodafone snap up fixed players in order be able to offer both fixed and mobile services, and fixed and cable operators such as Liberty Global establish mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) in their core markets.
For more:
- see this Wall Street article (in Romanian)
Related Articles:
Jibe Mobile powers Deutsche Telekom joyn expansion in Romania and Slovakia
Orange, Vodafone among five to submit bids for Romanian spectrum
OTE purchase makes sense for Deutsche Tel
Deutsche Telekom to pay €2.5bn for OTE stake