Croatian Unit of Austria's Mobilkom H1 EBITDA Falls 20.1% Y/Y

Revenues fell by an annual 8.2% to 224.7 million euro through June while operating income was down 32.3% to 37.3 million euro, Telekom Austria said in its financial report for the first half of 2009.

Vipnet's customers increased by 14.8% to 2.6 million at the end of June.

The company's revenues declined by 6.9% to 119.3 million euro in the second quarter of 2009 compared to 128.2 million euro in the same period a year earlier due to lower wholesale roaming revenues mainly as a result of the expiry of the national roaming agreement with a competitor in 2008 as well as lower subscription and traffic revenues as a result of lower prices and usage, the report said.

“Lower interconnection revenues, as a result of a reduction of mobile termination rates, which took effect as of March 2009, also contributed to this decline,” the report added.

EBITDA decreased by 17.8% to 40.6 million in the second quarter of the year mainly due to lower revenues.

Vipnet's operating income decreased by 27.0% to 22.7 million euro in the second quarter this year compared to the same period of the previous year, reflecting lower revenues and slightly higher depreciation and amortisation charges.

“At the end of the second quarter 2009 the mobile penetration rate in Croatia was 136.5% compared to 122.1% at the end of second quarter in 2008. Vipnet’s market share increased to 43.3% in second quarter from 42.2% a year earlier due to fierce competition,” the report said.

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.

($ = 0.7084 euro)