BELGRADE (Serbia), July 17 (SeeNews) – Telenor said on Tuesday the combined EBITDA, before other items, of its wireless units in Serbia and Montenegro increased 8.8% on the year to 719 million Norwegian crowns ($88.9 million/75.8 million euro) in the first half of 2018.
The combined operating profit of the Norwegian telecommunications group's units in the two Balkan countries rose 11.6% to 442 million Norwegian crowns in the first half, while total revenues increased 6.2% to 1.922 billion Norwegian crowns, Telenor said in an interim financial report.
In March, Telenor said it has agreed to sell its Central and Eastern European assets to Czech-based investment group PPF for 2.8 billion euro on an enterprise value basis. The deal includes Telenor's wholly-owned mobile operations in Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia and the technology service provider Telenor Common Operation. The transaction has not yet been completed.
Telenor's subscriptions in Serbia and Montenegro countries decreased to 6.28 million at the end of June from 6.493 million a year earlier.
Capital expenditure fell to 132 million Norwegian crowns from 152 million Norwegian crowns in the first quarter of last year.
Telenor's wireless unit competes with Telekom Srbija's mobile arm, MTS, and VIP Mobile, a unit of Telekom Austria Group, on the Serbian market of some 7 million people.
Telenor's main competitor in Montenegro is T-Mobile Crna Gora. M:tel, the third mobile operator in the Adriatic state of some 620,000 people, is majority-owned by Telekom Srbija.
Elsewhere in Southeast Europe, the Telenor Group also operates in Bulgaria.
(1 euro = 9.48857 crowns)