ZAGREB (Croatia), February 3 (SeeNews) – Swedish telecommunications group Tele2 said on Monday its Croatian unit reported a 455 million Swedish crowns ($47.1 million/42.6 million euro) EBITDA in 2019, up from 249 million crowns in 2018.
The 77% increase in the underlying EBITDA excluding IFRS 16 is a result of higher end-user service revenue and lower spectrum fees, Tele2 said in its 2019 annual financial report.
Tele2 Croatia’s total revenue increased 8% to 2.150 billion Swedish crowns last year, with end-user service revenue rising 11% to 1.246 billion crowns, the group said.
The capital expenditures of Tele2 in Croatia rose to 323 million Swedish crowns in 2019 from 127 million crowns in the previous year.
Last week, Tele2 said that Croatia's competition authority has decided to approve the sale of its local business to United Group, a leading multi-play telecommunications and media services provider in Southeast Europe (SEE). Tele2 announced the sale of its Croatian business to United Group in May, in line with its plans to focus on the Baltic region.
United Group has said it has agreed to buy Tele2 Croatia for 220 million euro ($243 million).
In Croatia, a market of around 4.3 million people, Tele2 Croatia competes with the local arm of A1 Telekom Austria Group - A1 Hrvatska, and with the wireless arm of Hrvatski Telekom, controlled by Deutsche Telekom.
(1 euro = 10.6795 Swedish crowns)