Telekom Romania sees higher revenues, but lower profits in the second quarter

Telekom Romania, German group Deutsche Telekom’s local subsidiary, recorded a 1.7% increase in revenues in the second quarter of 2015, to EUR 255 million. However, the group’s operational profits (EBITDA) in Romania dropped by 30%, to EUR 49 million, according to Greek group OTE’s financial report. Deutsche Telekom owns majority stakes in Telekom Romania Communications and Telekom Romania Mobile Communications via OTE. The two entities combined make the biggest telecommunications group in Romania, with over EUR 1 billion in revenues in 2014. Telekom Romania Communications, the former Romtelecom, posted a 0.5% increase in revenues in Q2, to EUR 150.5 million, but reduced its EBITDA by 42%, to EUR 26.1 million. The lower profits reflect the impact of direct costs such as interconnection, devices & IT products, as well as a drop in other income, according to a Telekom Romania press release. Telekom Romania Mobile Communications increased its revenues by 3.3%, to EUR 105 million. Its EBITDA went down by almost 12%, to EUR 22.9 million. In the past 12 months (June 30, 2014 to June 30, 2015), the group lost 1.4% of its voice clients (down to 2.16 million) and 3% of its broadband customers (1.21 million), but increased the number of TV subscribers by some 2.7%, to 1.42 million. On the mobile segment, the number of clients declined by 2.2% in the past year, to 5.86 million, as of June 30, 2015, according to OTE’s report. However, the group continued to increase its converged services customer base to 124,000 clients. “The success of MagentaONE bundles is reflected by the steady growth of the converged services customer base, counting over 124,000 customers at the end of June, 36,000 more than in Q1,” said Anastasios Tzoulas, Chief Financial Officer of Telekom Romania operations. Telekom Romania started selling integrated fixed mobile packages in September 2014, after the rebranding of its local operations under the “T” brand. In May 2015, Telekom launched the Magenta One integrated services in Romania. In the first half of 2015, Telekom Romania’s revenues declined by 3.6% to EUR 507 million while the operational profit EBITDA went down by 23%, to EUR 104.2 million. Telekom has 24 properties on sale in Romania Telekom becomes sponsor of Romania’s national football team Telekom Romania will invest EUR 160 mln this year in network upgrade editor@romania-insider.com