SmarTone’s revenue falls and EBITDA rises by 7% (Hong Kong)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 7% year-on-year decrease in the total revenue for the six months ended December 31, 2009 has been released by Hong Kong-based cellco SmarTone. Lower handset and accessory sales, and a 2% decline in services revenue brought the revenue to USD233 million.

As a result of the reduction in interconnection charges and cost control measures, 7% growth in the EBITDA has been recorded while the net profit increased by 112% to HKD111 million. 8% rise in the customer numbers has also been recorded, reaching to 1.231 million as of December 31, 2009. Out of this, 70% were post-paid customers.

Post-paid churn rate improved to 1.5% from 2.0% and blended ARPU fell by 7% to HKD214 in the six-month period compared to HKD230 a year earlier. The trend reflects continued downward pressure on local tariffs and lower roaming revenue.

23% year-on-year increase has been witnessed in data service revenue and it accounted for 33% of service revenue in the period under review. The HSPA+ network is already complete till 28.8Mbps, increasing the network speed to 42Mbps in 2010. This will pave the way for 80Mbps and even higher speeds with the implementation of 4G LTE services.

3G license was awarded to SmarTone in September 2009 and the country will start enjoying the 3G network in 2010.