Despite the challenging environment in Bulgaria during the second quarter of 2010, with growing macroeconomic pressures, lower consumer expenditure, fierce competition and increasing market saturation, GLOBUL has managed to post positive performance in a series of indicators.
The company’s postpaid customer base increased by nearly 7% from Q2 2009, reaching a total of 2.2 million, or 55% of its total customer base. GLOBUL has continued migrating prepaid customers to postpaid through innovative offers, and this, together with the prepaid registration process, has led to a decrease of nearly 10% in the prepaid customer base versus Q2 2009. As a result, GLOBUL’s total customer base at the end of June 2010 reached approximately 4 million. It is noted that for the first time since the end of 2008, GLOBUL closed the quarter with positive net additions.
Service revenues declined by almost 2.6% in Q2 2010, mainly due to macroeconomic factors, intense competition in the business postpaid segment and lower interconnection rates.
Despite the challenging business environment, GLOBUL & GERMANOS managed to reduce the cost base by 8.6% compared to Q2 2009 through consistent cost rationalization initiatives focusing primarily on sales, distribution, network and administrative expenses.
GLOBUL’s EBITDA decreased by 9.2% compared to Q2 2009, while its EBITDA margin slightly decreased by 0.2pp to 39.0%. H1 2010 EBITDA decreased by 3.6% compared to H1 2009, while the EBITDA margin increased by 1.2pp to 39.4%.
Average usage per customer continued to grow with blended AMOU for Q2 2010 standing at 134 min, or 15% higher than Q2 2009, while blended ARPU for Q2 2010 has reached 8.9 EUR, or almost 2% above Q2 2009.
Summary Financial Results for GLOBUL & GERMANOS Bulgaria for the 3 months and 6 months, ended June 30, 2010 & 2009
| (In BGN mln.) | Q2 2010 | Q2 2009 | Change | H1 2010 | H2 2010 | Change |
| Revenues | 207.0 | 227.3 | -9% | 410.3 | 439.7 | -6.7% |
| EBITDA | 80.7 | 89.1 | -9.2% | 161.7 | 167.8 | -3.6% |
| EBITDA margin | 39.0% | 39.2% | -0.2pp | 39.4% | 38.2% | 1.2pp |
Summary Financial Results for COSMOTE Group for the 3 months and 6 months, ended June 30, 2010 & 2009
| (In EUR mln.) | Q2 2010 | Q2 2009 | Change | H1 2010 | H1 2009 | Change |
| Revenues | 691.9 | 754.0 | -8.2% | 1,397.1 | 1,470.4 | -5.0% |
| EBITDA | 231.3 | 271.1 | -14.7% | 470.1 | 511.3 | -8.1% |
| EBITDA margin | 33.4% | 36.0% | -2.6pp | 33.7% | 34.8% | -1.1pp |
In Q2 2010, the mobile operations of the OTE Group provided telecommunications services to approximately 21.6 million customers, a 4.5% increase compared to Q2 2009.
