February 21 (SeeNews) - Croatia's biggest telecommunications operator, Hrvatski Telekom [ZSE:HT-R-A], said on Wednesday its consolidated net profit fell 7.5% to 863 million kuna ($142.9 million/116 million euro) in 2017.
The net profit figures are impacted by higher depreciation and amortisation driven by increased infrastructure investments and increased asset and receivables write-down, Hrvatski Telekom said in a filing to the Zagreb bourse.
Total consolidated revenues added 11.0% to 7.8 billion kuna last year.
Hrvatski Telekom maintained its leading position in all segments of the telecommunications market, the company noted. The main contributors to revenue growth were mobile communications revenue and system solutions growth.
Group mobile revenue rose 17.2% to 3.3 billion kuna last year, miscellaneous revenue increased by 34.7% to 151 million kuna and system solution revenue grew by 8.0% to 731 million kuna. Fixed-line revenue rose by 5.7% to 3.6 billion kuna.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) before exceptional items, increased 11.2% to 3.1 billion kuna with a margin of 40.5%.
HT's capital investments grew 17.2% to 1.9 billion kuna in 2017.
The number of the company's mobile subscribers edged up 0.5% to 2.24 million, with postpaid customers increasing by 8.7% as a result of overall push of successful and attractive tariffs and handsets, the company said.
Fixed-line customers decreased 5.4% to 875,000 last year due to the the market trend of fixed to mobile and IP substitution, regulation and enforced competition. The number of broadband subscribers increased 1.0% to 624,000.
HT's TV customer base showed a 4.0% increase from 2016 to 417,000 as a result of continuous service and program offer improvements through premium content and enriched exclusive TV content.
Hrvatski Telekom is 51%-owned by Deutsche Telekom.
In early January 2017, Hrvatski Telekom acquired a 76.53% stake in Crnogorski Telekom for a purchase price of 123.5 million euro. This transaction is part of HT's growth strategy through expansion into regional markets, the company said.
In 2018, the company expects revenue of 7.8 billion kuna and CAPEX of just under 1.9 billion kuna.
(1 euro=7.44208 Croatian kuna)