Pannon adds subscribers in Q2, but revenues, EBITDA down

Hungarian mobile operator Pannon says it added 47,000 net new users in the three months to 30 June 2007, raising its total to 3.197 million. Year-on-year, the cellco added a quarter of a million new users, 153,000 of which were post-paid and the remainder pre-paid users. However, revenues dipped to HUF47.2 billion (USD264.5 million) in the second quarter, down from HUF48.4 billion in Q2 2006, and EBITDA fell from HUF19.23 billion to HUF18.49 billion; the EBITDA margin slipped from 39.7% in 2Q06 to 39.2%. The company said CAPEX levels in the period were above those of the first three months of the year as it looked to intensify its 3G/HSDPA rollout. At the start of July Pannon said its mobile broadband networks covered virtually 100% of the population, and this is now being augmented with 3G/HSDPA coverage.