T-HT blames economy for Q3 slump

T-Hrvatski Telekom (T-HT), Croatia’s largest telecoms group, has blamed a worsening economic environment, increased competitive pressure and regulatory factors for a 7.1% year-on-year revenue decline to HRK5.66 billion (USD970 million) in the third quarter of 2012, although looking on the bright side it noted that margins remained stable. EBITDA fell by 6.7% year-on-year to HRK2.61 billion in Q3 2012, with the EBITDA margin standing at 46.1% compared to 46.0% in the same period of 2011. Net profit dropped 6.4% to HRK1.39 billion. Positive highlights included T-HT’s mobile data subscribers growing by 25.1% to reach 820,000 at the end of September 2012, as its overall consumer mobile base declined by 3.2% year-on-year to 1.967 million (although up 3.8% on Q2 2012) while business segment mobile accounts increased by 4.8% y-o-y to 476,000 (although conversely recording a 1.4% drop compared to the previous quarter). In the three months ended 30 September 2012 smartphone sales reached 51.0 % of total handsets sold. Fixed broadband lines in service declined in both the residential and business segments; by 2.7% to 523,669, and 2.6% to 104,935, respectively.