LYCAMOBILE LAUNCHES IN ROMANIA TO TARGET MILLIONS OF PRE-PAID MOBILE USERS
02 March, 2015 – Lycamobile, the world’s biggest international mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), has launched its service in Romania, the 18th country in its international network, as it looks to grow its global user base by 25% over the next 12 months.
Romanians will now be able to make international calls for just 1 euro cent per minute thanks to Lycamobile’s pre-paid SIMs, a particularly attractive proposition to those calling members of the country’s large diaspora around the world. According to the Romanian government, around 6m-8m Romanians live outside the country’s borders, including an estimated 3.4m in the other 17 countries in Lycamobile’s network.* An estimated 130,000 Romanians live in the UK.**
Consumer appetite for pre-paid mobile services in Romania has traditionally been very strong. There are 12.9m pre-paid mobile users in the country, compared to 9.4m users of subscription services. The majority (54%) of all mobile calls in Romania are made by pre-paid users. Overall mobile penetration in Romania is at 111%, as of June 2014.***
Founded with a mission to connect friends and family around the world, Lycamobile has grown quickly to serve 12 million customers around the world, including the UK, US and Australia. Lycamobile has the largest European footprint of any mobile operator, covering 80% of the continent’s population.
Lycamobile chairman Subaskaran Allirajah commented: “With such strong demand for pre-paid services, Romania was a natural next step for our international expansion. Launching there strengthens our offering even further across Europe and ensures we can help millions more people benefit from low-cost international calls. This is our first new market of 2015 but we have an exciting roadmap of announcements planned for the rest of the year as we aim to grow our user base by 25%.”
** “Population by Country of Birth and Nationality, 2013”, published August 2014: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-326579
*** Data from ANCOM, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania, December 2014: http://www.ancom.org.ro/en/more-mobile-fewer-fixed-telephony-subscribers-_5342
For further information: http://www.lycamobile.com
For further press information please contact: lycamobile@chimeplc.com
About Lycamobile
Lycamobile’s mission is to connect friends and family around the world. As the world’s biggest international mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), Lycamobile provides low-cost, high-quality data and voice services to over 12m customers across 18 countries. It is now expanding to offer a broad range of financial and travel services, including Lycamoney and Lycafly, that help people stay in touch across borders. Founded in 2006 and with a turnover of €1.5bn in 2014, Lycamobile continues to grow rapidly and now welcomes a new customer to its family every two seconds.
Lycamobile is available in: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.
