Fixed telephony operator RomTelecom’s operating revenues reached 198.4 million euros in Q1 this year, down nearly 16% from the same time last year.
“This sharp revenue drop is due to a decrease in international interconnect traffic and fixed-to-mobile substitution,” a release issued by Greek group OTE reads, adding this was partly offset by higher than forecast local traffic volume throughout January-March.#leadend#
Furthermore, the Greek telecommunications group – RomTelecom’s majority shareholder, shows the appreciation of the European currency against the ROL, significantly exceeding the Romanian inflation rate, affected the company’s revenues in euros.
The operator posted 9.3 million euro net income, as compared to the 17 million euro net losses in Q1, 2002. EBITDA reached 56.5 million euros, up 51.9%.
RomTelecom witnessed a surge in the volume of traffic on every market segment, except the fixed-to-mobile segment, as highlighted by OTE. RomTelecom at the end of March was servicing 4.22 million fixed telephony lines, the same as in the previous year.
The EBITDA margin of the Romanian company rose to 32% in the first quarter of this year, from the 23% in 2002.
“This is primarily due to the significant reduction in payroll and other operating expenses,” the release shows.
OTE says nearly 9,000 employees (23% of the total employees of the fixed telephony company) were laid off throughout March 2002-March 2003.
“Our Romanian fixed-line business, fully consolidated for the first time, recorded a solid increase in EBITDA margin, as we work on slashing the companies cost base,” Lefteris Antonakopoulos, OTE’s CEO and chairman of the Board said.
“RomTelecom does not expect significant competition to emerge in the Romanian domestic fixed-line market in the balance of this year. Following implementation of tariff rebalancing, RomTelecom expects to limit the full-year decline in operating revenues,” the release adds.
RomTelecom’s net financial debt amounted to 253 million euros at the end of March, down 35.3% from the previous year.
RomTelecom’s mobile telephony division, Cosmorom posted 2.2 million euro operating revenues in Q1, while operating expenses amounted to 12.5 million euros. It logged 10.5 million euro net loss. Cosmorom had come to total 92,227 customers by March 31, down 18.2% from the same time last year, with 51,683 clients as prepaid users and 40,544 as post-paid users.
OTE posted 113.1 million euro net income in Q1, down 19.6%, while operating revenues reached 1.1bn euros, up 7.8% from the first three months of last year. EBITDA was of 438 million euros, about one percent lower than in the first quarter of 2002.