November 9 (SeeNews) - The pro forma earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of Telekom Romania Mobile fell by an annual 32% to 43.5 million euro ($50.4 million) in the first nine months of 2017, its parent company, Greece's OTE, said on Thursday.
Pro forma EBITDA margin fell to 13.4% from 19.1%, OTE said in an interim financial statement. Telekom Romania Mobile's total revenues decreased by 2.9% on the year to 325.4 million euro in the nine months through September.
Telekom Romania Mobile’s total customer base shrank by 13.6% on the year to 4.76 million as of end-September, of which 34.3% was postpaid.
Blended average revenue per user (ARPU) was 5.6 euro at end-September, up 15.7% on the year.
In the third quarter alone, Telekom Romania Mobile booked a 14 million euro EBITDA, down 41.4% on the year. Total revenues fell 0.9% on the year during the period June-September to 111.1 million euro, mainly due to a decline in subscriber numbers, partly offset by higher roaming revenues from visitors.
In 2016, Telekom Romania Mobile's EBITDA fell by an annual 6.2% to 81.7 million euro.
Its sister company, fixed-line operator Telekom Romania Communications, posted negative earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 22.4 million euro in the first nine months of 2017, OTE said on Thursday.
Deutsche Telekom is present in Romania through its 40% shareholding in OTE. OTE's units in Romania - fixed-line operator RomTelecom and mobile operator Cosmote - were rebranded as Telekom Communications Romania and Telekom Mobile Romania, respectively, in September 2014.
In October, Telekom Romania partnered with Poland's Alior Bank in the launch of Telekom Banking - a package offering digital financial services to customers. The package of services will be introduced in phases, with daily banking services already launched and an online exchange platform to follow.
($ = 0.8614 euro)