April 27 (SeeNews) - A1 Bulgaria, a unit of A1 Telekom Austria Group, said on Wednesday that its earnings before interest and taxes, amortisation and depreciation (EBITDA) grew by 6.7% year-on-year to 59.3 million euro ($62.6 million) in the first quarter of 2022.
A1 Bulgaria's first-quarter revenue rose by an annual 3.7% to 137 million euro, after services revenue climbed 8.5% to 114.9 million euro, driven by an expansion in business ICT services, the company said in a statement.
Revenue from mobile services also expanded in the first quarter, by 5.7% to 74.8 million euro, on the back of demand for 5G network connections as well as for prepaid mobile phone cards, partly due to the company donating such cards to refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.
At the same time, fixed-line services revenue in the first quarter was 14.1% higher on the year, reaching 40.1 million euro, driven by broadband internet and interactive television subscriptions. Device and equipment sales dropped 16.9% to 20.8 million euro.
The number of A1 Bulgaria's mobile services subscribers remained almost unchanged in annual terms in the first quarter of 2022, at some 3.73 million.
A1 Bulgaria competes with Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), which operates under the brand name Vivacom, and Yettel, previously Telenor Bulgaria, owned by Netherlands-incorporated investment group PPF, which is controlled by the family of late Czech billionaire Petr Kellner.
($ = 0.9480 euro)