GLOBUL total revenues grew by 2.2% in the third quarter of 2011, compared to the same period last year, driven by strong performance on both service revenues and handsets sales, as indicated in OTE Group’s financial results. GLOBUL’s postpaid customer base increased by over 14% from Q3’2010, exceeding 2.5 million, corresponding to 60.8% of the total customer base.
Following the trends of the previous quarters, the third quarter of 2011 has been quite challenging for the country and the telecom industry, with domestic demand remaining subdued due to tight consumption and stagnating incomes. Fierce competition has led to continuous erosion of the retail prices mainly in the corporate segment and the market has approached saturation with estimated penetration of over 150%.
GLOBUL service revenues increased by 0.8% in Q3’2011, as the decline caused by the fierce competition in the business postpaid segment was more than offset by improved performance in roaming and interconnect.
The growth of the postpaid customer base and the handset sales has driven the increase of OPEX vs. Q3’2010 by 7.6%, despite the savings in оther expense categories. As a result, Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) decreased by 5.5% compared to Q3’2010, while the EBITDA margin is 3.1 pp lower than prior year.
Mirroring general trends in the country, GLOBUL has continued migrating prepaid customers to postpaid through innovative offers and this has led to a decrease in the prepaid customer base. As a result, GLOBUL’s total customer base at the end of Q3 2011 was about 4.2 million or by 7% higher than in 2010.
GLOBUL’s fixed line services continued their strong growth in Q3’2011, reaching a subscriber base of 200,000 customers. Mobile data services also recorded a significant increase vs. Q3’2010, as the subscriber base more than tripled.
Average usage per customer continued to grow with blended AMOU for Q3’2011 at 152 min., or almost 8% above Q3’2010, while blended ARPU for Q3’2011 has reached BGN 16.30, or 5% below same period prior year.
Summary Financial Results for GLOBUL & Germanos for the 3 and 9 months ended September 30, 2011 & 2010.*
|
(In EUR million) |
07-09.11 |
07-09.10 |
Change |
01-09.11 |
01-09.10 |
Change |
|
Revenues |
108.6 |
106.3 |
2.2% |
306.4 |
316.3 |
-3.1% |
|
EBITDA |
41.1 |
43.5 |
-5.5% |
116.9 |
126.1 |
-7.3% |
|
EBITDA margin |
37.8% |
40.9% |
|
38.2% |
39.9% |
|
*Total figures are after COSMOTE intragroup eliminations.
