LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), July 27 (SeeNews) -Slovenia's biggest telecommunications operator Telekom Slovenije [LJE:TLSG] said on Thursday its first-half consolidated net profit jumped 41% on the year to 24.3 million euro ($28.5 million).
The group's consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 2% on the year to 106.8 million euro in the January-June period, while net sales revenue increased 6% to 367.1 million euro, Telekom Slovenije said in a filing with the Ljubljana bourse.
The group's first-half EBITDA margin decreased to 29.1%, down from 30.2% last year, while its operating revenue added 5% on the year to 370.1 million euro.
"Revenues this year are higher primarily due to increased revenues on the wholesale market and increased revenues from IT services," Telekom Slovenije explained. "The Telekom Slovenije Group succeeded in making up for lower revenues from classical fixed telephony and mobile services, where subscribers and prepaid customers are moving into bundled packages and new mobile packages which include several mobile services at a lower price."
In the review period, the number of Telekom Slovenije's mobile users dropped 2% on the year to 1,741,249, the number of users of fixed voice telephony services remained unchanged at 559,002, while broadband users increased 2% to 353,082.
In Bosnia and Kosovo the telco had 663,001 mobile users, up 1% on the year, while on the local market it lost 3% of its mobile users on the year to 1,078,248.
Telekom Slovenije earmarked 62.0 million euro for investments in the first half of the year, an increase of 2% compared to last year.
The majority of future investments will be directed for the modernisation and development of broadband fibre optic networks and fourth-generation mobile networks, through which the company is creating a platform to attract new subscribers and secure new revenue sources, it explained.
The Telekom Slovenije group employed 3,744 by June 30, up 2% compared to last year.
($=0.853025 euro)