Brazilian telco Oi reports fall in revenue

On 03.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A heavy fourth-quarter loss of 365 million Brazilian reals ($207 million) due to non-recurring expenses and declining revenue has been posted by Brazil’s largest telecommunications company, Oi. A net profit of BRL13 million was generated by the company in the fourth quarter of 2008.

EBITDA of the company came down from BRL2.44 billion in the year-earlier quarter to BRL2.37 billion while the EBITDA margin dropped to 31.4% in the fourth quarter from 31.9% in the same period the prior year. Due to sliding fixed-line telephone usage, the fourth-quarter net revenue went down to BRL7.5 billion, from BRL7.6 billion a year earlier.

Due to the expenses on legal action related to the integration of rival operator Brasil Telecom and deferment of subsidies on prepaid phones, Oi recorded non-recurring costs of BRL305 million. A swallow increased costs has been suffered by the company because of the integration of Brasil Telecom and the entrance into the Sao Paulo mobile phone market last year.

The company’s debt level rose to 2.2 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, in 2009 following the purchase of Brasil Telecom, a rival operator, and the campaign to enter into the Sao Paulo mobile market.

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Brazilian telco Oi to invest $1.7bn-$2.3bn in 2010

On 03.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An investment of 3 billion to 4 billion Brazilian reals ($1.7 billion to $2.3 billion) in 2010 has been considered by Brazil’s largest telecommunications company, Tele Norte Leste Participacoes S/A. The focus of the investment is on expanding broadband Internet capacity for fixed and mobile networks.

BRL5.1 billion was invested by the operator in 2009 and 70% of that amount was pumped into networks. The investment will also allow the company to reduce debt levels. The company’s debt level rose to 2.2 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, in 2009 following the purchase of Brasil Telecom, a rival operator, and the campaign to enter into the Sao Paulo mobile market.

The aim of the company is to reduce that debt amount to 1.7 times to 1.9 times EBITDA by the end of this year. There are probabilities that the Sao Paulo mobile operation reach break-even in April of this year, which will take some pressure off finances.

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Turkcell net profit drops by 45.3%

On 03.12.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 45.3% year-on-year decline in fourth quarter net profit has been reported by mobile group Turkcell, whose revenues went to TRY253 million in 2009 from TRY462 million (USD300.4 million) in the final three months of 2008.

Drop to impairment charges, fixed asset write-offs and legal payments totalling TRY256 million in the three months have been attributed as some of the reasons behind the loss. With 3% year-on-year fall, the revenues for the period slipped to TRY2.26 billion. EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) fell by 11.5% from TRY770 million to TRY682 million.

Meanwhile, the full year net profit of the company fell by 25.9%, down to TRY1.7 billion. The company had a tough time dealing with the accumulated legal fees and impairment charges of TRY381 million which greatly affected the earnings.
A consolidated customer base growth of 2% year-on-year has been recorded by Turkcell despite a 4.3% drop in subscribers in its domestic operation (down to 35.4 million cellular subscribers)

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Bharti regains losses as investors revisit Zain deal (India)

On 03.09.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Within two days of the announcement that Bharti Airtel and Zain will enter into exclusive talks for Zain’s African assets, Bharti lost $3.6 billion in market capitalisation.

However, an improvement in the investor’s sentiments has been noticed since then, primarily after Bharti’s conference call with analysts in end-February on the Zain acquisition. The main concern was the fact that the valuation of the deal at 11.6 times estimated 2009 EBITDA was far too high.

In its clarification, the company said that the $1.7 billion debt component in Zain Africa’s enterprise value is inclusive of the share attributable to minority shareholders. The company has also indicated that tax rates in Africa are relatively lower, which justifies some premium in the valuation. Besides, the capital infusion of $9 billion of Zain till date makes the valuation of $10.7 billion look reasonable. The fact that Zain’s margin is lower than Bharti’s margin also leaves room for cost containment.

$4 billion would be used by Zain Africa’s holding company to retire debt on its books with the interest burden of $4 billion debt already reflected in Zain Africa’s financials, hence, the incremental interest burden would only be on $5 billion of debt.

All the factors have contributed well to improve the sentiments of the investors and has helped Bharti regained almost two-thirds of those losses.

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Qatar Telecom reports increase in turnover

On 03.09.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Consolidated group financial and operational results for 2009 has been posted by Qatar Telecom in which 20.5% increase in the net profit attributable to shareholders has been revealed, going up from up from QAR2.3 billion in 2008 to QAR2.8 billion (USD765 million) in the full-year. The company showed 15.1 percent increase in the EBITDA going up to QAR 11.3 billion.

The consolidated customer base of the group stood at 60.5 million at December 31, 2009. Entry of Qtel’s first mobile competitor, Vodafone Qatar affected the domestic EBITDA which fell to QAR3.3 billion.

The Indonesian unit of the company, Indosat’s subscriber base at end-December 2009 stood at 33.7 million, down from 37.0 million a year earlier. Removal of a significant proportion of the lower-value, calling card type behavior subscribers’ from its base over the twelve-month period has been cited as reason behind this decrease.

The total active subscribers of Asiacell increased by 20.4% during 2009 as a result of which the year closed at 7.35 million, revenue increased by  40.4% to QAR4.0 billion and EBITDA increased by 43.9% to QAR2.2 billion.

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Qatar telecom Q4 profit drops by 7%

On 03.09.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to non operational provisions in Kuwaiti’s Wataniya subsidiary, 7.9% drop in the fourth-quarter profits of QAR431 million (US$118 million) has been reported by Qatar Telecom (Qtel). 9% increase in the revenue has been shown, going up to QAR6.54 billion (US$1.8 billion) while the EBITDA was up by 4.6% to QAR2.97 billion. However, the EBITDA margin fell to 45% from 47%.

The net profit was up by 20.5% to QAR2.78 billion (US$764 million) for the full year and revenues on the other hand grew by 18.2% to QAR24 billion (US$6.6 billion).

With a rise of 5.2% over the year, 60.53 million customers were gained by Qtel across all its markets.

According to His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani, Chairman of the Qtel Group, this has been a year of real achievement for the Qtel Group and now the company is the largest telecommunications provider in the Middle East – North Africa region by number of operations while the diversified operations have delivered strong returns and enabled the firm to thrive in a highly competitive and challenging environment.”

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

On 03.05.10, In Mobile, By Editor

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.

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Portugal Telecom’s net profit rises 18.7% in 2009

On 03.05.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A net profit of EUR683.9 million (USD934.3 million) for the year ended December 31, 2009 has been posted by Portugal Telecom. The figure is up 18.7% year-on-year from EUR576.1 million in 2008.

In the year 2008, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) climbed 0.9% from EUR2.48 billion in FY08 to EUR2.5 billion at end-2009. As a result of this rise, the revenue also grew from EUR6.72 billion in 2008 to EUR6.78 billion a year later.

The domestic fixed line customer base of the operator also saw an increase from 4.29 million at year-end 2008 to 4.58 million a year later. Even the ADSL subscribership topped 862,000 at the same date, up from 710,000 in 2008.

However, a continued decline in PSTN connections over the year has been reported by the company, down to 2.75 million from 2.84 million in 2008.

319,000 net new customers over the twelve-month period have been added by the company’s wireless arm Telecomunicacoes Moveis Nacionais (TMN). TMN ended 2009 with 7.25 million mobile subscribers in total.

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Turkcell expects net profit of around TRY 250m (Turkey)

On 03.04.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A net profit of around TRY 250 million has been expected by telco Turkcell as a result of extraordinary charges for impairments, write-offs and legal reserves in Q4.

Legal reserves related to the Telecommunications Authority, fixed asset write-offs related to operations in Belarus and Turkey, goodwill impairment charges in Belarus and Tax Authority and Competition Board’s recent decisions in Turkey have been recognized in line with IFRS guidelines.

As an impact of the one-time charges and reimbursements based on the regulator’s decisions, revenue of TRY 2.260 billion is expected by the operator in its fourth quarter.  EBITDA is expected to be approximately TRY 680 million in Q4.

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Bharti Airtel might sell stake to repay loans (India)

On 03.04.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Fresh shares might be issued by Indian telco Bharti Airtel or it might divest its holdings in telecommunication infrastructure companies to reduce the burden of debt it must have to fund its acquisition of most of the African operations of Zain.

Medium-term debt, loans with a maturity period between one and ten years will fund the purchase and the money generated from operations as well as a likely equity issue will be used to repay the debt. A final deal is expected to be completed by end-April or mid-May.

According to Akhil Gupta, group deputy CEO and MD of Bharti Enterprises, the company will use a combination of free cash flow and equity to repay debt and there is a possibility to raise more equity at Airtel or Bharti Infratel level, but it has not taken any decision at this point. The company is expected to improve both revenue market share and EBITDA margins within a year or so of the takeover.

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