April 25 (SeeNews) - Telekom Austria said its Bulgarian unit Mobiltel’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped to 28.2 million euro ($30.68 million) in the first quarter of 2017, from 33.6 million euro in the same period last year.
Mobiltel’s total revenues rose to 103.5 million euro in the first three months of the year, compared to 97 million euro in the corresponding period of 2016, Telekom Austria said in its Q1 2017 financial statement.
Total costs and expenses rose by 18.7% in a year-on-year comparison, Telekom Austria said without providing a figure for the amount. The increase was primarily caused by volume-driven higher costs of equipment stemming from customer retention measures as well as increased workforce costs, driven by the ongoing sales increase, Telekom Austria explained.
Capital expenditures increased to 14.7 million euro in the first quarter of the year, compared to 13.3 million euro the same period last year.
The number of mobile subscribers declined slightly by 0.8% year-on-year to 4.1 million in the first quarter of 2017, driven by losses in the prepaid segment due to an ongoing shift towards postpaid offers.
In Bulgaria, a country of 7.4 million, Mobiltel competes with the local unit of Norway's Telenor and the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), which operates under the brand name Vivacom.
($= 0.91915 euro)