China Mobile full year profits rise by 3.9%

China Mobile Corp has reported its full year results. As per the results, its full year revenues rose by 7.3% to US$73.8 billion, while net profit increased by 3.9% to US$18.2 billion.

The customer base rose by 11.8% to 584 million – a rise of 61.73 million over the previous year. Of the total, 20.70 million are using 3G services.

EBITDA rose 4.5% over last year to US$36.43 billion, with EBITDA margin reaching 49.3%.

In addition, voice usage volume continued to grow. Average minutes of usage per user per month (MOU) were 521 minutes, up by 5.4% over last year. Average revenue per user per month (ARPU) was US$11.10, exhibiting a slowdown in decline.

According to the company, it will accelerate the rollout of its TD-LTE network and will still consider suitable overseas acquisitions.

Telekom Malaysia Q4 revenues grow by 2.1%

Telekom Malaysia has reported its Q4 results. As per the results, the company posted revenues of US$2.9 billion in 2010, as compared to US$2.83 billion twelve months ago.

According to the company, much of the growth was due to the increasing demand for internet and data services: sales from its internet unit were increased by 5.9% year-on-year to US$559.63 million.

Net income soared 88% to US$395.03 million, partly increased by the sale of stakes in a number of affiliated companies. In its outlook for 2011, the company stated that it was targeting revenue growth of 2.5%, and an EBITDA margin of 32%, decreased slightly from 33.1% recorded in 2010 and 34% posted in 2009.

CAPEX in 2011 is expected to reach US$987.58 billion as the company continues the launch of ‘HSBB’, its high speed broadband network.

Advanced Info 2011 EBITDA margin to ease to 45% (Thailand)

Advanced Info Service PCL expects its EBITDA margin to edge lower this year to 45% from 46.8% in 2010 due to an expected rise in handset sales, which yield narrower margins than services revenue.

According to Nattiya Poapongsakorn, investor relations manager, the company expects service revenue growth, excluding interconnection fee, at 4% this year.

Advanced Info booked a 7.9% growth in service revenue to US$2.87 billion last year.

According to Nattiya, Thailand’s largest mobile phone company by subscribers expects to gain around US$9.80 billion to US$13.70 billion from interconnection fees, down from US$19.64 billion last year. Meanwhile, data revenue is expected to surge 25%-30% this year, due to cheaper smart phones and the growing popularity of social networking.

Data revenue jumped 30.5% last year to US$490.2 million.

Nattiya added that the company has budgeted marketing expenses for this year at 2.5%-3% of revenue,  which is higher by 2.1% spent last year.

Vivo Q3 net profit nearly doubles

Vivo Participacoes, Brazil’s leading cellular operator reported its third-quarter results. As per the results the net profit of the company almost doubled due to an increase in revenue and  reduction in financial expenses. Vivo net profit for the quarter grew to $354 million compared to the previous year. The net revenues increased by 10.4%.

The financial expenses totaled  US$37.19 million in the period, which is a falling figure as compared to the previous year.

The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda stood at US$902.16 million. The EBITDA margin, a measure of profitability over net revenue, was 33.4% in the quarter, the same level reported in the previous year.

KPN sees a slight rise in profits and revenues

KPN­, the Netherlands based company has reported company recorded its Q3 results. As per the quarter results the company saw an increase in its revenues and profits. The revenues increased merely 1.4% to US$4.67 billion.

The net profits were up by 2.8% to US$5 million. The operating profit rose faster. The company repeated that revenue this year will be in line with last year’s US$18.65 billion, with EBITDA at more than US$7.60 billion.

According to Outgoing CEO, Ad Scheepbouwer, KPN made good progress across the Group in the third quarter and the company is pleased with the revenue growth for the Group. Building further on the momentum they have established with Back to Growth strategy, the Dutch Telco business showed continued increase in profitability. Mobile International delivered continued profitable growth, especially with Germany delivering higher service revenue growth and a strong margin. Overall the company is confident of achieving objectives for 2010 and the outlook for 2011, which will provide the platform for KPN to move forward in 2011 under the leadership of Eelco Blok.

Finance costs in the period surged to US$409.04 million compared to the same period last year. Profitability at the business increased, with EBITDA margin up to 53% from 50.6% a year earlier.

Orascom Telecom suffers loss of 32% in Q1 (Egypt)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 32% fall in profit has been reported b y Egyptian telecoms firm Orascom Telecom due to heavy start-up costs in Canada and troubles in Algeria. The company earned USD49 million due to an exceptional gain in the same quarter a year ago for the sale of M-Link, a long distance network for voice and data.

One-third of its total revenue has been accounted by revenue at Orascom’s Algerian unit Djezzy and it also fell to USD412.5 million in the quarter from USD462.5 million a year earlier.  According to Orascom, Djezzy was hit by a new 5% sales tax on mobile recharges and the lingering fallout from attacks on the unit’s headquarters and shops in November after a bitter World Cup qualifying match between Egypt and Algeria.

EBITDA of USD520.9 million on revenue of USD1.22 billion in the first quarter of 2010 has been posted by the telco while EBITDA margin has been 42.8%. Canadian start-up Globalive contributed most of the USD33.7 million associate cost.

Taiwan-based Chunghwa Telecom revenue increases by 2.6%

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An increase of 2.6% in the annual revenue has been reported by Taiwan-based Chunghwa Telecom earning TWD51.1 billion (USD1.61 billion) for the fourth quarter of 2009. Operating profit increased by 12.7% to TWD13.2 billion and EBITDA rose by 4.4% to TWD22.1 billion for the three months ended December 31, 2009.

The EBITDA margin and operating profit which were 42.6% and 23.4% for the fourth quarter of 2008 went up to 43.3% and 25.7%, respectively. Due to the TWD1.2 billion financial asset impairment recognized in the fourth quarter in 2008, company’s net income rose by 24.6% to TWD10.6 billion.

With 1.6% fall, consolidated revenues of TWD201.67 billion of the company in the year 2008 went down to TWD198.4 billion.  From TWD45.01 billion, the net income was down marginally to TWD43.75 billion.

Full year mobile communications business revenue was down by 2.6% but mobile subscribers increased by 3.6% to 9.27 million.

Taiwan’s subscribers base to reach 28m in 2014

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to multiple SIM accounts, rise in the subscriber’s base has been predicted in Taiwan from 26 million in 2009 to 28 million in 2014.

Chunghwa Telecom’s subscriber is forecasted to be  increased from 9.1 million in 2009 to 10 million in 2014 while Taiwan Mobile will remain in the second place with 7.1 million subscribers in 2014, and Far EasTone will remain in the third place with 6.2 million subscribers in 2014.

It has also been predicted that subscriber market shares of Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan Mobile will be increasing slightly over the next several years to reach 35.8% and 25.3% respectively in 2014.

However, EBITDA margin is said to decrease from 40.1% in 2009 to 38.1% in 2014 but Chunghwa Telecom will continue to enjoy the highest profitability in Taiwan’s mobile operator space.

Telenor profit powered by Asian subscriber growth

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telenor’s Q4 profit grew 25% year-on-year despite quarterly and annual declines in revenue because of increasing subscriber numbers in Asia.  Net profit hit 2.5 billion kroner (€308 million) from 1.9 billion kroner even after sales fell from 29 billion kroner to 26 billion year-on-year.

The quarterly and annual growth of the operator is contributed by growing number of subscribers at Telenor’s operations in Pakistan which added 842,000, Thailand which added 386,000 users, and Bangladesh which added 1.2 million subscribers, thus ending 2009 with a total of 174 million subscribers.

According to CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas, 2009 results reflect the firm’s focus on geographical presence and reorganization of its activities and he also predicted single digit growth in organic revenues for 2010, and EBITDA margin of 27%-28%, excluding other income and expenses.