Telstra lowers its stance on revenues
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to difficult markets at home and in Hong Kong, Australian operator Telstra cut its sales outlook for 2010. The company attributed the flattish FY 2010 revenues to a difficult second half of its fiscal year
2009. Earlier, the company expected growth in the low single digits.
Strength of the Australian dollar, strong domestic competition driven by ULL growth, tough operating conditions in Hong Kong, very competitive mobile offers, and a growing number of mobile-only households were the major drivers behind the lower-than-expected growth.
Because of the similar reasons, the sales for the fiscal first half of 2010 will also be lower. For low single-digit growth in full-year EBITDA and EBIT, a stable EBITDA margin, capex at around 14 percent of sales and free cash flow of AUD 6 billion- Telstra’s guidance was unchanged.
Kazakh operator Kazakhtelecom and Tele2 enter into SEK 550 million deal
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Kazakh operator Kazakhtelecom and Tele2 entered into a SEK 550 million deals under which the latter will acquire a 51 percent stake in the former, operating under the brand name Neo in the local market.
Tele2 is committed to pay around SEK 360 million once the transaction is completed.
After consolidation, Neo could benefit from Tele2′s brand marketing and product strategies. Relaunch the operator with a new marketing campaign within the next year has been planned by Tele2.
At present, Neo is the third operator on the market with around 380,000 subscribers or an about 7 percent market share. Neo’s target has already been planned by Tele2 which wants it to grab at least 20 percent of the market share within four years of the relaunch. The plan also includes EBITDA breakeven within 2-3 years and capex of SEK 2.4-2.6 billion in the period 2010-2103.
Digiwebs take over releases Smart Telecom of examinership
Smart Telecom, an Irish based telecom operator announced to exit examinership status on December 11, 2009 after the company is acquired by other operator Digiweb. Examinership status is a process by which the protection of the courts is obtained to assist the survival of an Irish limited company.
Ireland’s highest court has already approved of the merger of the two companies. The aim of the deal is to restructure Smart’s balance sheet as well as the transfer of its residential and business customer base to services provider Digiweb.
Though Smart Telecom will become part of the enlarged operation, it will still retain its brand name in the short term in a deal combining two EBITDA-positive businesses with annual revenues of close to EUR40 million and more than 150 staff.
The enlarged company formed by the merger of Smart Telecom and Digiweb will have a total subscriber base of 46,500 business, residential, corporate and government customers for broadband, data and telephony. Besides, the company will also have over 48,000 webhosting, domain and data centre clients.
