In the first half of this year, the total sales of mobile telephony services were estimated at 1.6 billion lei, decreasing by 94.7 million lei (5.4%) compared to the same period of last year. According to the statistics of the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and the Technology of Information, the drop was caused by a lower number of mobile telephony users and a lower amount of voice traffic, IPN reports.

Moldcell sales dropped by 7.6% to 451.3 million lei. Orange recorded a slightly lower drop of 5.3%, with total sales of 1.1 billion lei. Moldtelecom’s Unite actually enjoyed a growth of 8.7%, with sales reaching 68.1 million lei.

In January-June 2016, the total number of mobile telephony users decreased by 24,700 (-0,6%) compared to the end of 2015. Overall, there are 4.2 million users, including 3.6 million (85.7%) active users.

Orange lost about 42,500 customers, while Moldcell and Moldtelecom gained 9900 and 7800 customers respectively.

The amount of voice traffic in this period decreased by 72,000 minutes compared to the first semester of 2015, with a total of 3.7 billion minutes.

ANRCETI experts explain the decreasing sales of mobile telephony services by the growing number of smartphone users who prefer to use voice services like Skype or Viber via mobile Internet.