Millicom revenues up 41% in Q4Emerging markets mobile operator Millicom reported fourth-quarter revenues of USD 768 million, up 41 percent from a year earlier on strong subscriber growth. EBITDA improved 34 percent to USD 307 million, and net profit rose to USD 113 million from USD 50 million a year earlier, helped by a tax benefit in Colombia. Millicom added 3.4 million new subscribers in the quarter for a total 23.35 million at year-end, of which 96 percent were prepaid. The company said the strong subscriber growth led it to accelerate investments last year, which rose to over USD 1 billion from USD 616 million in 2006. It expects to again spend over USD 1 billion this year. MIllicom will pay a special dividend of USD 2.40 per share with the proceeds from selling Paktel.
Central America remained the company’s largest market with revenues of USD 329 million, up 31 percent from a year earlier. EBITDA improved 28 percent to USD 168 million. The region added 1.42 million customers during the quarter for a total 8.82 million, helped by the introduction of per-second billing last year.
In South America, revenues rose 47 percent from a year earlier to USD 239 million, while EBITDA improved 54 percent to USD 75 million. Subscriber numbers rose to 5.89 million from 5.30 million at the end of September. Millicom said results in Colombia were hurt by the cut in interconnection rates, but a parallel cut in end-user prices is expected to offset the effect. Tigo Colombia added 276,000 subscribers in the quarter.
In Africa, sales rose 57 percent to USD 145 million and EBITDA increased 34 percent to USD 44 million. Over 1 million new customers were added in the quarter, for a total 5.67 million. Milicom said its operations in Chad, which were shut down at the end of January, are preparing to restart services shortly. Growing in the business in Chad and DRC led to a drop in the EBITDA margin to 31 percent last year, which Millicom said should be a low point and wa salready improving from Q4.
In Asia, revenues from continuing operations were up 43 percent to USD 54.5 million, and EBITDA rose 27 percent to USD 20.4 million. The number of subscribers increased to 2.96 million from 2.62 million three months earlier.
