July 28 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's biggest telecoms operator Telekom Slovenije [LJE:TLSG] said on Thursday its first-half consolidated net profit dropped 22% on the year to 17.3 million euro ($19.2 million).
The group's consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) edged down 2% on the year to 105.2 million euro in January-June, while total revenue fell 5% to 347.8 million euro, Telekom Slovenije said in a filing with the Ljubljana bourse. EBITDA margin increased by 0.8 percentage points to 30.3%
The telco noted that this year's results are not directly comparable to the same period last year as they no longer include Macedonia's telecom operator ONE. "When comparing the net sales revenues, excluding One, the Telekom Slovenije Group made a 10.4 million euro net revenues, a 3% increase on last year," it elaborated.
The group's total mobile subscriptions dropped 5% during the first six months of the year to 1,717,030 at end-June, while total fixed-line connections edged down 1% to 564,690. In line with the drop in subscribers, revenues fell by 12% on the year to 131.5 million euro in the mobile segment of the end-user market and by 1% to 118.3 million euro in the fixed-line segment.
In Slovenia alone, mobile subscriptions fell 5% during the first half to 1,121,605 at end-June.
The group's broadband connections edged up 1% during the period to 331,534, driven mainly by a 5% jump in connections in Kosovo, while on the domestic market users fell 1%.
In the first half, Telekom Slovenije invested 60.9 million euro in its units, 41% more than in the same period last year. The telco plans to invest a total of 156 million euro by the end of the year.
In 2015, Telekom Slovenije merged its Macedonian unit ONE with Telekom Austria’s Vip Operator, getting a 45% share in the newly established company. The group has operations also in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In January, Telekom Slovenije said it expects its consolidated net profit to total 34 million euro in 2016, down from 68.1 million euro achieved last year.
($=0.8999 euro)