July 27 (SeeNews) - Croatia's biggest telecommunications operator, Hrvatski Telekom [ZSE:HT-R-A], said on Thursday its first-half consolidated net profit decreased 1.7% on the year to 410 million kuna ($64.9 million/55.3 million euro).
"Net profit after non-controlling interest decreased as a result of higher depreciation and amortization, higher financial expenses driven by content capitalization, partially compensated with lower taxation, higher EBITDA contribution and lower costs that are treated as exceptional items mainly related to restructuring and redundancy costs," Hrvatski Telekom said in a statement.
Consolidated revenues in the six months through June rose by an annual 8.5% to 3.7 billion kuna, while EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) before exceptional items, increased 8.9% to 1.46 billion kuna with a margin of 39.5%.
The telco noted that the all results were boosted by the consolidation of Montenegrin peer Crnogorski Telekom, which Hrvatski Telekom acquired in January.
Compared to the same period in 2016, H1 2017 Capex realisation has increased by 27.7% to 824 million kuna.
The company's mobile subscribers decreased 0.4% on the year to 2.24 million at the end of June, as a result of prepaid underperformance. The number of postpaid customers was higher by 7.0% than at the end of H1 2016 as a result of an overall push of successful and attractive tariffs and handsets, and campaigns, Hrvatski Telekom said.
Fixed-line customers dropped 4.8% on the year to 899,000 due to the market trend of fixed to mobile and IP substitution, regulation and strong competition. The number of broadband subscribers rose 2.9% to 624,000.
The group’s TV customers, including IPTV, DTH and cable TV, increased 5.2% on the year to 411,000 at end-June.
Hrvatski Telekom is 51%-owned by Deutsche Telekom.
(1 euro=7.41082 kuna)