May 8 (SeeNews) - Telekom Austria's Bulgarian subsidiary Mobiltel said on Wednesday its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by an annual 19.8% to 39.4 million euro ($51.6 million) in the first quarter of 2013.
Revenue fell by 15.8% on the year and totalled 97.5 million euro, as a result of the strong competition on the local market and stringent regulatory measures, Mobiltel said in a statement.
In the first three months of 2013, Mobiltel managed to increase its broadband customer base by 29.4% on the year to 155,090.
Users of fixed broadband services increased by an annual 22.3% to 162,100, while the mobile subscriber base shrank by 1.5% on the year to 5.4 million.
Mobiltel, whose market share fell to 45.9% in the first quarter of 2013, competes with Globul, a unit of Greek wireless phone operator Cosmote, and the mobile arm of telecom operator Vivacom.
Bulgaria, a country of 7.3 million people, had a mobile market penetration rate of 158.3% at the end of March, up from 151.7% at the end of the same month last year.
($=0.763 euro)