February 22 (SeeNews) - Fixed-line operator Telekom Romania Communications posted adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 101.9 million euro ($125 million) in 2017, up by 9% on the year, its parent company, Greece's OTE, said on Thursday.
EBITDA margin rose to 16.8% from 15.5% in the previous year, OTE said in an interim financial statement.
Telekom Romania Communications' 2017 revenues rose by 0.9% to 607.4 million euro, driven by higher wholesale revenues and
the continuing solid performance from the company's convergent fixed-mobile solution.
Voice telephone lines decreased 2.5% on the year to 2.09 million at end-December and broadband subscribers declined 0.5% to 1.18 million.
The number of Telekom Romania Communications TV subscribers rose by 0.4% on the year to 1.47 million at end-December.
In the fourth quarter alone, Telekom Romania Communications booked a 26.1 million euro EBITDA, down 7.8% on the year. Total revenues fell by 3.9% on the year in the last quarter of 2017 to 160.3 million euro, primarily impacted by the downward trend in fixed voice revenues.
The adjusted EBITDA of the sister company Telekom Romania Mobile fell by an annual 28.8% to 58.2 million euro in 2017, OTE said on Thursday.
Deutsche Telekom is present in Romania through its 40% shareholding in OTE. OTE's units in Romania - fixed-line operator RomTelecom and mobile operator Cosmote - were rebranded as Telekom Communications Romania and Telekom Mobile Romania, respectively, in September 2014.
On Monday, Telekom Romania group said that it has begun the process of rebranding of Germanos shops into Telekom. Germanos is a Greek telecommunications retail company which was acquired in 2006 by Cosmote.
In December, all mobile entities of Telekom Romania merged under Telekom Romania Mobile Communications SA. The merger concentrated the entire mobile telephony operations of Germanos Telecom Romania SA, Sunlight Romania Filiala Bucuresti SRL and Telemobil SA, as absorbed companies.
($ = 0.8117 euro)