October 25 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian unit of Norwegian telecoms group Telenor said on Wednesday its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) edged up 1.1% year-on-year to 191 million levs ($114.9 million/97.6 milllion euro) in the first nine months of 2017.
The company's revenue rose 2% on the year to 498 million levs in January-September on the back of higher device sales, it said in a statement. Its EBITDA margin declined to 38.4% from 38.6%.
Expressed in Norwegian crowns, Telenor Bulgaria's nine-month EBITDA inched down 0.2% year-on-year to 903 million crowns, while its revenues edged up 0.4% to 2.35 billion crowns, the Norwegian parent said in its third quarter report. It noted it has used an exchange rate of 4.7213 Norwegian crowns for one Bulgarian lev in its calculations for the first nine months of 2017 versus 4.7939 crowns per lev for the same period last year.
In the third quarter alone, Telenor Bulgaria reported EBITDA of 67 million levs, down from 68 million levs last year, and revenues of 175 million levs, up from 172 million levs.
The number of Telenor's subscribers in Bulgaria rose by 6,000 during the third quarter to 3.23 million at end-September.
Capital expenditure dropped 29% on the year to 25 million levs.
Telenor bought Bulgarian mobile operator Globul from Greece's OTE for 717 million euro in 2013. In November 2014, Globul was rebranded to Telenor Bulgaria.
On the Bulgarian mobile segment, Telenor competes with Mtel, the local unit of Telekom Austria, Bulgarian telecommunications group BTC, which operates under the brand name Vivacom, as well as with 4G operator Max.
(1 euro=1.95583 levs)