November 5 (SeeNews) - Magyar Telekom said on Thursday its Montenegrin unit, Crnogorski Telekom, posted an annual rise of 65.6% in its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the third quarter, while revenue increased by 2.0%.
The sharp rise in EBITDA was due to the 900 million forints ($4.8 millon/3.2 million euro) headcount-reduction related severance expense in the third quarter of last year, Magyar Telekom said on its website.
It added that in the third quarter of 2009 a 1.0 billion forints provision created in the first quarter of 2007 and related to litigation in connection with a voluntary redundancy programme was reversed.
The rise in revenue was driven by the average 14.1% weakening of the Hungarian forint against the euro in the third quarter.
“In local currencies, revenues declined by 10.6% and EBITDA, excluding severance expenses and the provision reversal, was down by 13.0% with an EBITDA margin of 39.9%,” the statement said.
Fixed-line revenue declined by 1.8% in local euro currency in the third quarter of 2009 due to lower voice retail revenues, mostly offset by increasing internet and TV revenues.
The decrease in voice retail revenues was driven by the high mobile substitution. Internet revenue, however, showed a steep increase thanks to the growing number of ADSL and Extra TV customers.
Mobile revenue was down by 17.9% in the third quarter of 2009. The decline was caused by the fallout in visitor revenues caused by the negative impact of the economic recession on tourism in Montenegro as well as the fierce competition generated by the third mobile operator.
Magyar Telekom, majority-owned by Deutsche Telekom, acquired 76.53% of Crnogorski Telekom (www.telekom.me) in 2005.
Crnogorski Telekom competes with with two wireless operators in the Adriatic country of 620,000 people: ProMonte, owned by Norway's biggest telecommunications group Telenor, and m:tel, which started operations in July 2007 and is owned by a consortium of Serbian state-owned company Telekom Srbija and Netherlands-based Ogalar.
(1 euro=276.9963 Hungarian forints)