August 19 (SeeNews) - Telekom Austria said on Wednesday its Macedonian wireless unit, Vip Operator, cut its first-half negative EBITDA (earning before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) by an annual 25.9% to 8.3 million euro ($11.7 million).
Revenues rose by an annual 111.6% to 9.1 million euro through June, Telekom Austria said in its financial report for the first half of 2009.
Vip operator, the third largest mobile operator in Macedonia, had 224,400 customers at the end of June compared to 209,200 a year earlier. The operator’s market share was 9.6% at the end of the second quarter of 2009 compared to 9.9% a year earlier due to a drop in prepaid subscribers caused by an earlier promotions churn. At the end of June 2009 the penetration rate in Macedonia was 114.6%, the report said.
Vip operator’s revenues more than doubled year-on-year to 5.2 million euro in the second quarter of 2009 as a result of higher subscription and traffic revenues driven by the strong increase of customer base and usage, it added.
The negative EBITDA of the company improved from 5.2 million euro in the second quarter of 2008 to 4.0 million euro in the second quarter of this year, reflecting a continuing enhancement of the operating performance.
Operating loss was reduced to 5.7 million euro in the second quarter of 2009 from 6.1 million euro a year earlier.
VIP Operator competes with Magyar Telekom's local unit, T-Mobile, and with Telekom Slovenije-owned Cosmofon in the country of two million people.
Besides VIP Operator (www.vip.mk), the wireless operations of Telekom Austria group (www.telecom.at) include Bulgaria's Mobiltel, Velcom in Belarus, Mobilkom Austria, Croatia's Vipnet, Slovenia's Si.mobil and Serbia's Vip mobile.
($=0.7084 euro)