Connex plans to keep us talking for $500 million

The major telecom companies in Romania have drawn the line for 2002. Whereas the fixed telephony business came out at a loss, the mobile communications maintained profitable. After Orange, it was MobiFon’s, owner of the Connex brand and the leading mobile telephony operator in Romania, turn to release its results this weekend. MobiFon last year succeeded in consolidating its business, increasing operating income by 33% and service revenues by 18%.  Debts stay at $267 million, however, up $6 million from last year.
MobiFon’s bills were more than $65 million sounder than 2001, thus boosting service revenues to $425.6 million, its majority shareholder, Canada-based Telesystem International Wireless (TIW) said. MobiFon’s revenues in 2001 reached $359.9 million. EBITDA increased 24% to $231.5 million compared to $186.4 million in 2001. Operating income rose 33% to $144.6 million compared to $108.6 million for 2001.
TIW did not provide details as to the net revenues of MobiFon for 2002. The company had posted 82.76 million euros in net profit the year before, according to the Finance Ministry, with the company ranking tenth among the non-financial companies posting the highest turnovers.
MobiFon officials are optimistic about 2003.
“I think MobiFon’s revenues will reach about $500 million at the end of 2003 and the number of clients will exceed 3 million. Net profit will go beyond $100 million,” Ted Lattimore, MobiFon’s Chief Operating Officer told Ziarul Financiar.
MobiFon added 631,600 net subscribers in 2002, reaching 2,635,300 subscribers by yearend. TIW says Connex has a 53% share of the cellular market, the same as in 2001.
MobiFon was registering $267.7 million in debts by the end of 2002.
Still, 2003 does not seem to be as good as 2002 in terms of new clients for the mobile telephony operators. “We expect the mobile telephony market to gain one million more clients in all this year. Half of which we hope Connex would attract,” Lattimore said. The ongoing development of the market can explain the slower growth pace of the number of mobile telephony service users.
What strategy will the operator embrace under the circumstances? “The deregulation of the market allows us to do what we couldn’t do before. We will try to focus on providing as many new services as possible, on increasing traffic for the already existing clients, as well as on attracting new clients,” Lattimore says.