Telekom Austria's Macedonian Unit Cuts Jan-Sept Negative EBITDA to 11.2 Mln Euro

Revenues rose by an annual 86.6% to 15.3 million euro through September, Telekom Austria said in its financial report for the first nine months of 2009.

Vip operator, the third largest mobile operator in Macedonia, had 265,500 customers at the end of September compared to 250,900 a year earlier. The operator’s market share was 12.9% at the end of the third quarter of 2009 compared to 11.5% a year earlier. At the end of September 2009 the penetration rate in Macedonia was 100.5%, the report said.

Vip operator’s revenues nearly doubled year-on-year to 6.2 million euro in the third quarter of 2009 as a result of higher subscription and traffic revenues driven by the increase of customer base and usage, it added.

The negative EBITDA of the company improved from 4.4 million euro in the third quarter of 2008 to 2.9 million euro in the third quarter of this year, reflecting a continuing enhancement of the operating performance.

Operating loss was reduced to 4.7 million euro in the third quarter of 2009 from 5.6 million euro a year earlier.

VIP Operator competes with Magyar Telekom's local unit, Т-Mobile Macedonia, and with Telekom Slovenije-owned Cosmofon AD that now operates under ONE brand. Macedonia has population 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.

($=0.6655 euro)