TP SA quarterly results higher than expected by market

2010-05-04

In Q1 2010, TP SA reported a 10.2% decline in sales revenues to PLN 3.87bn (€997m), while net profit totalled to PLN 285m (€73.5m), reflecting a 13.1% decrease year on year. The weaker results are the effect of a decline in the company’s customer base as well as reduced mobile termination rates (MTR) in the mobile phone operators’ networks.
The revenues from the fixed-line telephony service decreased by 10.5% to PLN 2.3bn (€593m), while PTK Centertel, the Orange mobile network operator belonging to the TP SA group, posted PLN 1.82bn (€469m) of turnover, which is 9.1% less than in Q1 2009. Also, the number of subscribers of Neostrada, the Internet access service, went down by 32,000 to 2.03 million. In turn, the mobile Internet user count grew by 12,000 in Q1 2010 to around 400,000.
Still, the TP SA results were higher than expected by the market analysts due to the company’s smaller investments, which lowered the amortisation costs by PLN 119m (€30.7m) when compared to Q1 2009. In the first three months of 2010 the operator invested PLN 201m (€51.8m), while in the same period of the previous year the value of investments amounted to PLN 512m (€132m). Moreover, thanks to the cost reduction, the group saved PLN 130m (€33.5m) in Q1 2010.