Vodafone is a Romanian mobile phone network operator. It launched in April 1997 as the first GSM network in Romania . 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 99.31% of the Romanian population, with 9.1 millions subscribers as of March 2011. Vodafone provides roaming agreements with 310 international operators in 143 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 24.6 million active mobile telephony users in Romania.
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