Telekom Austria's Slovenian Unit Q3 Operating Income Falls to 7.9 Mln Euro

The EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of Si.mobil, Slovenia's second largest wireless operator, fell from 17.0 million euro in third quarter of 2008 to 13.7 million euro in third quarter of 2009, due to a drop in revenues partly offset by a reduction in operating expenses by 4.2%, Telekom Austria said in a quarterly financial report.

The company increased its subscriber base by 5.1% to 580,300 customers at the end of September driven by a growth in contract subscribers of 11.6%, the report said.

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.

($=0.6692 euro)