November 12 (SeeNews) - Croatian wireless operator Vipnet, a unit of Austria's Mobilkom, posted an 11.3% year-on-year drop in its nine-month EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) to 65 million euro ($97 million), Mobilkom's parent company, Telekom Austria, said on Thursday.
Revenues fell by an annual 9.5% to 142.8 million euro through September due to price reductions for voice, data, roaming and termination as well as lower usage while roaming traffic increased, Telekom Austria said in its financial report for the first nine months of 2009.
Weaker foreign currency translation impacted revenues negatively by 2.7 million euro, it added.
The number of Vipnet's subscribers rose by 9.9% to 2.6 million at the end of September, the report added. Vipnet’s market share increased to 42.9% in the third quarter from 42.3% a year earlier.
At the end of the third quarter, the mobile penetration rate in Croatia was 137.8% compared to 127.1% a year earlier.
Vipnet's competitors on the wireless market in Croatia are T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom's Croatian arm T-HT, and Tele2, owned by the Swedish operator of the same name. Vipnet is also licensed to provide fixed-line voice services.
Besides Vipnet (www.vipnet.hr), the wireless operations of Telekom Austria group (www.telecom.at) include Velcom in Belarus, Mobilkom Austria, Bulgaria's Mobiltel, Slovenia's Si.mobil, Serbia's Vip mobile and Macedonia's Vip Operator.
($ = 0.6692 euro)