November 10 (SeeNews) - Fixed-line carrier Telekom Romania Communications, formerly RomTelecom, posted negative earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 46.6 million euro ($51.7 million) in the first nine months, its parent company, Greece's OTE, said on Thursday.
In the like period last year the company, which offers fixed-line telephony services, booked negative EBIT of 34.1 million euro.
Telekom Romania Communications' pro forma earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by an annual 21.3% to 65.2 million euro in the nine months through September, telecom group OTE, which is majority owner, said in an interim financial statement.
EBITDA margin fell to 15% from 18.7% in the first nine months of 2015, mainly due to an unfavourable revenue mix, higher externally driven cost categories, and the lack of non-operating asset sales, the company said.
Telekom Romania Communications' January-September revenues decreased to 367.8 million euro, dropping from 388.5 million euro in the like period of 2015.
In the third quarter alone, Telekom Romania Communications' pro-forma EBITDA rose 23.4% to 29.5 million euro, while revenues rose 3.9% to 149.1 million euro.
"The quarter was marked by positive results generated by the new revenue stream segments that are showing steady growth, such as TV and wholesale, leading to higher total revenues for both fixed and mobile," Telekom Romania operations CFO Anastasios Tzoulas said.
Compared to the third quarter in 2015, the number of fixed mobile convergence solution subscribers jumped 92% to 338,882 subscribers.
Also, the number of TV subscribers rose 2.1% on the year to 1.46 million in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the same period of last year.
The TV technology with the highest increase in Telekom’s TV portfolio was IPTV.
Broadband subscribers, both fixed and mobile, remained relatively stable in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the third quarter last year to 1.188 million.
Deutsche Telekom is present in Romania through its 40% shareholding in OTE. OTE's units in Romania - fixed-line operator RomTelecom and mobile operator Cosmote - were rebranded as Telekom Communications Romania and Telekom Mobile Romania, respectively, in September 2014.
($ = 0.9012 euro)