Telekom Austria's Slovenian Unit H1 Operating Income Falls 47.7% Y/Y

Si.mobil, Slovenia's second largest wireless operator, posted a 28.1% annual drop in its first-half EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) to 21.7 million euro on the back of a 2.7% year-on-year decline in revenue to 88.1 million, Telekom Austria said in its half-year financial report.

Si.mobil increased its market share to 28% at the end of June from 27% a year earlier, the report said. Subscriber numbers rose by an annual 8.8% to 581,800 at the end of June.

The mobile penetration rate in Slovenia was 102.4% at the end of the second quarter of this year compared to 98% a year earlier.

The company competes with Slovenia's largest cellphone operator, Mobitel, a unit of state-owned telecoms company Telekom Slovenije, and the much smaller Vega, which is run by U.S. Western Wireless International.

Besides Si.mobil (www.simobil.si), the wireless operations of Telekom Austria group (www.telecom.at) include Velcom in Belarus, Mobilkom Austria, Bulgaria's Mobiltel, Croatia's Vipnet, Serbia's Vip mobile and Macedonia's Vip Operator.

($=0.7078 euro)