February 14 (SeeNews) - A1 Telekom Austria Group said its Croatian unit, former Vipnet, recorded a 9.3% growth in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to 145 million euro ($157 million) in 2019.
The revenues of A1 Croatia rose by an annual 0.7% to 432.8 million euro in the twelve months through December, A1 Telekom Austria Group said in an interim financial statement earlier this week.
In the fourth quarter of 2019 alone, A1 Croatia reported EBITDA of 29.2 million euro, up 18.6%, while revenues edged down 0.3% to 109.3 million euro.
"Total revenues in the Croatian segment remained stable, as solid service revenue growth of 3.2 %, driven by the increase of both the mobile and the fixed-line service revenues, was offset by the decline in equipment revenues," A1 Telekom Austria said.
The number of wireless subscribers of A1 Croatia rose to 1.8 million at the end of December, up 0.8% on the year.
The total capital expenditures (CAPEX) of A1 Croatia fell by an annual 1.3% to 86.6 million euro in 2019.
In October 2018, the Croatian unit of A1 Telekom Austria said it changed its name to A1 Croatia from Vipnet. Telekom Austria Group decided in 2017 that A1 will become a unique brand for all its subsidiaries, including Vipnet on the Croatian market.
On the mobile segment in Croatia, a market of around 4.3 million people, A1 Croatia competes with the local unit of Swedish telecommunications group Tele2 and with the wireless arm of Hrvatski Telekom (HT).
However, Tele2 is in the process of selling its Croatian unit to United Group, a leading multi-play telecommunications and media services provider in Southeast Europe (SEE). It said in January that Croatia's competition authority has decided to approve the planned sale. The transaction was already announced back in May, in line with Tele2's plans to focus on the Baltic region.
($ = 0.922538 euro)