February 23 (SeeNews) - Orange Moldova, the local unit of France Telecom's Internet and mobile arm Orange, saw its revenues drop 7.4% to 125 million euro ($131 million) last year, affected by a downturn in incoming international traffic since the last quarter of 2015, Orange said on Thursday.
In the fourth quarter alone, revenues rose 6.3% year-on-year to 34 million euro, after falling by an annual 3.7% in the third quarter, Orange said in its 2016 annual financial report published on its website.
"The improvement was linked to a recovery in mobile equipment sales, while incoming international traffic continued to be down," Orange added.
Orange Moldova had 2.187 million clients at the end of December 2016, up from 2.139 million at the end of 2015.
The blended annual revenue per user (ARPU) declined to 4.2 euro in 2016, from 4.6 euro a year earlier.
The operator's 4G network covers 97% of Moldova's population of about 3 million.
On October 18, Moldova's antitrust regulator approved the takeover of local cable and pay TV company Sun Communications by Orange Moldova.
The transaction will allow Orange Moldova to enter the fixed-line and pay TV services market and offer new services, particularly convergent offers and services across fixed, mobile and pay TV services.
Following consolidation of Sun Communications, Orange Moldova’s TV services segment had 100,000 customers at end-December 2016, while fixed broadband had 44,000 customers.
($=0.9524 euro)