Mobile operators in Moldova. Who is the top in 2025?

The table shows only organic traffic from Google search, without brand queries

*For analysis we use Ahrefs, one of the most accurate tools on the market, but even it underestimates the real traffic figures. And significantly: according to our measurements, by 3-5 times. This is not a hypothesis, but a proven fact that we tell every client. Therefore, if the traffic is conditionally 1,000, the real traffic can be 3,000+. Ahrefs does not overestimate, it is always cautious. Just keep it in your mind when you look at the numbers.

For clarity, let’s display the traffic volume data in a pie-shaped pie chart to see who is taking a big bite out of it.

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Comparison of traffic from Google for the years 2024-2025

In this section, we compare the total search traffic of all players for 2024 and 2025.

What is included in “general traffic”? These are all conversions from Google search for any queries – both branded (e.g. “orange store”) and general (e.g. “iphone 16 pro max”). This indicator shows the scale of SEO-visibility of the site as a whole – not only in Moldova, but also beyond its borders.

Unbranded traffic

Share of branded traffic

How much is organic traffic worth?

Top queries that generate targeted traffic to the site

Traffic analysis on the query “Abonament”

The table reflects the amount of traffic the site receives per month, which includes all keyword phrases with the word “Abonament”. Example: “toate abonamentele orange”, “abonamente orange”, “orange abonamente”, “orange telefoane la abonamente”, etc.

Traffic analysis on the request “eSIM”

How traffic is shared, sites on demand: Iphone 16

For the sake of clarity, let’s visualize it as a pie

How traffic is shared, sites on demand: Iphone 16 Pro

For the sake of clarity, let’s visualize it as a pie

How traffic is shared, sites on demand: Iphone 16 Pro Max

For the sake of clarity, let’s visualize it as a pie

How traffic is shared, sites on demand: Samsung Galaxy S23

For the sake of clarity, let’s visualize it as a pie

How traffic is shared, sites on demand: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

For the sake of clarity, let’s visualize it as a pie

How traffic is shared, sites on demand: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

For the sake of clarity, let’s visualize it as a pie

Comparison of financial performance

The market grew at a CAGR of 4.72% in 2024.
Profit also increased, from 760.5 million to 822.9 million.
This indicates a stable growth of the sector in Moldova.

For a share Orange.md accounts for more than 50% of the total market turnover and over 65% of the total profit.

Short conclusions

We have a clear picture of brand/non-brand traffic.

* Non-brand traffic – these are visits to the site from search engines for queries that do not mention the company’s brand.

In the online space, companies → should aim for 70-80% non-branded traffic because that’s what brings in new customers who are looking for a specific product/service – considering purchasing it.

Services: Abonament (tariffs, subscriptions)

Orange.md – receives 1800 traffic per month “Abonament”, which is 10+ times more than the closest competitor Moldcell.md This shows that Orange has a clear fixation on the keyword “abonament” and is actively capturing the search demand. Probably, they have better optimized tariff pages and the brand is perceived as the main provider of subscription services.

Moldcell.md – 165 traffic. This is very little, considering their scale as an operator.

Moldtelecom.md – 74 traffic. Considering that Moldtelecom has a large pool of subscription services, this share is extremely low.

Services: eSIM

Orange.md – receives the vast majority of traffic.

eSIM in Moldova is associated first of all with Orange, a little less with Moldcell.md , Moldtelecom is almost out of the picture.

Devices: Iphone / Samsung

1. Orange.md

• 2024: dominated by non-branded traffic (67.6%).
• 2025: strong decline in non-brand share to -56.5% and growth in brand queries to +43.4%.
• Conclusion: Orange is still the main leader in organic reach, but the trend shows that people are searching for them more often as a brand than by product in general. This means that Orange’s brand position in the minds of potential customers in the market is strengthening, but the SEO potential through non-brand presence online is decreasing, with total traffic in 2025 showing a negative growth of -1.49%

2. Moldcell.md

• 2024: the balance was toward non-brand (51.3%), but pretty close to brand.
• 2025: dramatic rise in branded inquiries (58.5%) and fall in non-branded (41.4%).
• Conclusion: Moldcell strengthened the work with brand awareness, but at the same time they lose organic search, which limits the attraction of clients through SEO. Thanks to advertising campaigns, it was possible to increase the website traffic in 2025 by +23,47%

3. Moldtelecom.md

• 2024: brand and non-brand almost in half (51.3% vs 48.6%).
• 2025: brand growth to 53.1%, non-brand remained stable (46.8%).
• Conclusion: Moldtelecom grows slowly and maintains a balance between brand and services. It is the company with the most stable traffic structure, but without a strong breakthrough.

The task of SEO is to attract non-branded traffic, which is traffic on goods and services from Google searches among Moldovan residents. Mobile operators earn money from the sale of gadgets and smartphones, as well as from the sale of communication services, internet and television.

Darwin.md – the absolute leader, successfully captures traffic for all iphone (16, Pro, Pro Max) queries on Google,

• iPhone 16 – 2705 traffic
• iPhone 16 Pro – 622
• iPhone 16 Pro Max – 1583

Operators (Orange, Moldcell) are stable at the top, but lose to Darwin in terms of volume:

• Orange.md from 1285 (iPhone 16) to 463 (Pro Max)
• Moldcell.md from 1182 (iPhone 16) to 586 (Pro Max).

Online retailers (Enter, Smart, iSpace, Bomba, Gorilla, Cactus) are picking up residual traffic.

• Enter.online “fires” only on request iPhone 16 Pro (318).
• Smart.md. – 1143 on iPhone 16, but is missing from Pro/Pro Max.

Conclusion: Darwin.md. – key player in the iPhone niche, operators are struggling, but are still second. All three operators are experiencing an increase in brand requests and a decrease in non-brand → traffic on gadgets and phones is taken away by online retailers. Mobile operators strengthen themselves in the minds of consumers through advertising campaigns aimed at “brand recognition and memorization”.

By request Samsung S23 / S24 Ultra

Darwin.md – is again the leader with 1347 and 1471 traffic.

By model: Samsung S23 Ultra – the situation is changing: Orange.md – leader (1526), overtaking Darwin.md (675)

The big picture: Operators vs Online Retailing

Darwin.md. – universal leader for all iPhone and Samsung models, pulls the main traffic.

Orange.md. – occasionally intercepts the leadership (example: Galaxy S23 Ultra).

Mobile operators in Moldova compete not only with each other, but also with retail.

Experts’ opinions

Opinion of Angela Cijevschi, Managing Director – xplane.md

According to the results of a quantitative study Lovemark, conducted by Xplane research SRL in the period July-August 2025:

Lovemark’s average score in the telecommunications sector was 59.9.

The industry leader is Orange with a score of 75.5, well ahead of its competitors and forming the strongest emotional attachment of consumers.

Moldcell showed an indicator of 61.1, being slightly above the market average.

Moldtelecom (55.5) and Starnet (53.7) remain below the median, demonstrating relatively weak brand loyalty.

Arax (50.2) occupies the last position, noticeably lagging behind the sector leaders.

Thus, the market is characterized by a clear leader – Orange, while the other players need to strengthen their work on brand loyalty and emotional value.

Orange is not only the undisputed leader in the telecommunications sector, but also tops the ranking among all 15 economic sectors covered by the survey.

Opinion of Rodica Hurmuzache, Marketing Director – moldtelecom.md

– Does your website help you with customer service today?

Yes! Absolutely! Our website plays an important role in building trust with our customers!

Together with our team we strive to create a simple, convenient online platform where our client can get full information about our services 24/7 and get support from a consultant!

In addition, we have developed a unique for the local market feature “interactive calculator” – which allows users to put together a package of services (Internet, TV, mobile communication) and immediately see the final cost. This is an important step towards transparency and personalization! Today we realize that we still have a lot of work to do to turn the website into the main sales channel, without the need to visit a physical store!

Do you set a goal to “increase website traffic”?

Increasing visibility for non-branded queries remains a priority for us! We want to attract visitors to the site from Google searches looking for information about gadgets, eSIMs and subscriptions – these are the ones that matter most to us.

What methods do you use to attract new users to your site, what traffic channels do you use?

To attract new users to the site, we use different tools! SEO and content help us come up in searches for the right queries. We run advertising on Google and social networks to target our offers to those who really need them. Works with CRM too – we remind our existing customer base about new services and promotions. We actively use digital PR and media partnerships to increase our brand visibility and credibility on the Moldovan market.

What steps have you taken in the last 12 months to retain and build SEO positions?

Over the last year we have emphasized SEO and invested in several areas. We optimized the website: faster loading, improved the mobile version and made the structure more user-friendly. We added more useful content about our packages, eSIM, TV and internet. We realize that there is potential ahead, our market is growing every year! Now we are primarily developing the link profile of the site through partnerships with the media. We are already seeing the first results, but to be honest – we need to move faster.

Do you have an in-house SEO team or do you work with contractors? Which model do you think produces the best results?

We have our own SEO team. But sometimes we turn for help to agencies that compensate for our weaknesses, they show us what we are missing and what opportunities we have to improve.

What metrics are really important to you in SEO?

– What matters most to us is what really makes a difference in the quality of our customers’ satisfaction. We do surveys of our clients, we try to keep up with the times! When analyzing marketing activities, we pay attention to non-branded traffic and positions on commercial queries, because they are the ones that bring new clients. We monitor conversions and cost per lead to understand the effectiveness. In addition, we pay attention to the quality of the site – Core Web Vitals and user engagement, because a fast and user-friendly site directly affects our results.

In your opinion, why is your brand losing organics?

Today, the main reason is the high competition with retailers in the device segment where they have a much larger range of electronics presented on the website.

What do you struggle with most often in SEO?

Today the profession of “SEO-specialist” is new on the Moldovan market, we observe a lack of specialists in this field. Because of this, we have to actively invest in internal training and cooperate with external experts.

If you could go back a year – what’s one SEO joint you definitely wouldn’t repeat?

If we could go back a year, we would definitely not delay the launch of content projects and work with non-branded queries. Today we realize that time in SEO plays a critical role: whoever started building a content team and pumping up the site earlier, today already collects more traffic from Google search. For too long we relied only on branded queries and our fare pages, and underestimated the power of educational and comparative content. This is a major lesson for us.

Opinion of Rodion Coșev, Head of Digital Products – moldcell.md

We view SEO as a fundamental and critical component that ensures long-term sustainability and complements the effectiveness of all our ATL/BTL activities by focusing on quality engagement.

What are the key changes in Moldcell SEO strategy planned for 2026?

Key changes focus on strengthening UX and deeply integrating SEO with product strategies to maximize content relevance and sustainable growth.

What KPI do you see for SEO in 2026?

The main KPI is the quality of traffic and its direct conversion into revenue and LTV. We focus on the profitability of the SEO channel, not the pure volume of traffic.

In 2025, we see branded traffic rising to 59% and non-branded traffic falling to 41%. Is this a conscious bet on brand recognition or a side effect of advertising campaigns?

Our strategic focus is on systematically expanding the share of non-branded traffic, which we see as a key potential for scaling. The growth of branded traffic is an expected result of synergy of our ATL/BTL investments.

Retailers take away the main part of search traffic on iPhone and Samsung. Does Moldcell have a strategy to compete with online retail specifically in organics?

Our strategy is not to compete directly, but to focus on our unique value as an operator: comprehensive packages, financial solutions and communication/service integration. We communicate this to the user looking for a device.

Your top query is Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro. Do you plan to increase visibility on flagships (iPhone, Galaxy), which bring maximum LTV, or will the bet be on the middle segment of smartphones?

We do not focus on just one segment, but evenly strengthen our presence where demand is most commercially viable in terms of overall profitability, balancing the high LTV of flagships with the mass reach of the mid-segment.

What new demands or technologies (e.g. 5G, eSIM) do you see as drivers of organic traffic for 2026?

The key traffic drivers for 2026 will be 5G and eSIM as a reflection of new consumption standards. We are focused on creating expert content on these areas to ensure leading visibility.

Are you going to build up an eSIM cluster presence?

Yes. eSIM is a key strategic focus area and we plan to maximize our SEO capabilities in this cluster to attract a tech-savvy audience and ensure high visibility.

How many specialists are involved in SEO within your company? Do you use your own department or work with external partners/agencies?

We use a combination of a strong internal team for strategy and coordination, and strategic partnerships with external experts to scale and provide specialized expertise.

Today, customers are not only looking for answers on Google, but also on ChatGPT. Have you started preparing content and SEO strategy for AI optimization?

We are actively preparing a content-strategy for AI-optimization and conversational search (ChatGPT, SGE). The key focus is on creating structured, authoritative content (E-E-A-T) that can be easily used by AI to generate accurate answers.

Opinion of Eugene Gherasimciuc, Head of Digital Marketing, Profile Agency

In general, there are two main strategies in Digital marketing: Branding and Lead Generation.

SEO is about both. SEO tools allow us to analyze branding queries, as we did in this article, which gives us an idea of how much a brand has become known. After all, the more often your name is searched for – the more popular you are. Isn’t that right?

Also, SEO allows you to think “long term” and build your lead generation strategy ahead of time.

For example: by pre-writing keywords into articles related to a new product that you are just planning to bring into the country. That way, when your product is already here – you will already be receiving organic traffic from search engines – and consequently, sales.

As a digital marketer, I believe that in 2025, there is no place in Moldova without SEO. It is a tool that helps businesses not only to get clients, but also to understand how popular a brand is.

I recommend thinking about SEO during the website creation phase, as this way you can immediately develop an optimized and effective sales tool rather than just a storefront.