One of the best known Romanian brands "dies" today only to be reborn under an international brand. One of the biggest communications names in Romania, Connex, becomes Vodafone on Thursday at the end of a long rebranding process that followed the assimilation of the Romanian company MobiFon in the largest mobile communications giant worlwide.

But the change will not limit to the transformation of the Connex green into the Vodafone red, as the company plans a series of new services for its clients in Romania.

The move comes ten years after a Canadian consortium, TIW, won one of the two mobile telephony licenses for the Romanian market. Thus the MobiFon company was born, controlled by TIW along with AirTouch Canada, Logic Telecom, the Romanian Investment Fund, Ana Electronics, the ISAF industrial group and the Romanian Mail.

Next year, MobiFon launched the first digital mobile telephony network in Romania, Connex GSM.

MobiFon was bought by Vodafone in the largest acquisition on the Romanian market ever in May 2005, when the international giant paid 2.5 billion US dollars for the Romanian company.

Connex-Vodafone has 6.1 million clients in Romania and contributes 1% of the Romanian GDP, according to company data.

Vodafone has divisions in 27 countries and partner networks in another 14, offering services to 154.8 million clients worldwide.