August 19 (SeeNews) - Telekom Austria said on Wednesday its Bulgarian unit, wireless operator Mobiltel, posted a 29% annual decline in first-half operating income to 74.4 million euro ($104.9 million).
Mobiltel’s first-half earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) decreased by 12.9% year-on-year to 164.5 million euro while total revenue fell by 3.8% to 307.8 million euro, Telekom Austria said in its half-year financial report posted on the company's website.
Mobiltel's revenues declined by an annual 4.8% to 157.7 million euro in the second quarter of 2009 mainly due to lower subscription and traffic revenues. A higher contract subscriber base partly offset lower prices as a consequence of fierce competition. In general, the economic slowdown in Bulgaria primarily impacted Mobiltel’s business segment. In the private customer segment usage continued to grow, but the growth was shifted to cheaper priced on-net minutes, the report said.
The operator's EBITDA decreased 8.4% to 87.9 million euro in the second quarter of 2009 mainly due to lower revenues and lower other operating income. Operating expenses could be reduced by 2.3 million euro mainly due to savings in marketing and sales and material expenses, whereas interconnection costs rose due to rising traffic into other networks partly offset by lower mobile-to-fixed tariffs, it added.
Mobiltel increased its customer base by one percent to 5.2 million people at the end of June, compared to the end of June a year ago. The number of subscribers declined compared to the first quarter this year due to inactive prepaid customers who were taken out of the subscriber base.
Mobiltel’s market share fell slightly to 50% from 50.5% at the end of June last year. The mobile penetration rate in the country of 7.6 million rose from 133.8% in the previous year to 137.5%.
Mobiltel competes with Globul, a unit of Greek wireless operator Cosmote, and the smaller Vivatel, owned by Bulgarian telecoms group BTC.
Besides Mobiltel, the wireless operations of Telekom Austria group (www.telecom.at) include Belarussian Velcom, Mobilkom Austria, Croatia's Vipnet , Slovenia's Si.mobil , Serbia's Vip mobile and Macedonia's Vip operator.
($=0.7096 euro)