ZAGREB (Croatia), September 11 (SeeNews) – Hrvatski Telekom [ZSE:HT] plans to invest 210 million kuna ($34 million/28.3 million euro) in the development of its business and digital transformation strategies in the next three years, the Croatian blue-chip telecommunications operator said.
The strategy, unveiled in May 2017, envisages the launch of nine new IT systems and is expected to reduce the number of business processes by 70%, increase the number of automatic steps by 57% and simplify the portfolio of services by as much as 50%, the company said in a statement on Friday.
The specific objective of the transformation is positioning of Hrvatski Telekom as the frontrunner in terms of user experience throughout the markets it currently operates on, the telecoms group said.
Hrvatski Telekom increased investment by 17.6% on the year in the first half of 2017. By the end of this year, 58% of households in Croatia will be provided with Internet access speeds exceeding 30 Mbit/s, the company said.
The company is planning to significantly improve the coverage of landline broadband Internet by the end of the year. Consequently, Internet access speeds exceeding 30 Mbit/s will be provided to 876,000 households, or 58% of the total number of Croatian households. Fibre-optic Internet access will be provided to 378,000 households, or 25%.
The first-half consolidated net profit of Hrvatski Telekom decreased 1.7% on the year to 410 million kuna. Consolidated revenues rose by an annual 8.5% to 3.7 billion kuna in the six months through June.
Hrvatski Telekom is 51%-owned by Deutsche Telekom.
(1 euro = 7.43249 kuna)