Telenor Hungary says that revenue in Q3 2013 decreased to HUF38.38 billion (USD181.2 million) compared to HUF40.41 billion in the same quarter last year, driven mainly by the reduction of interconnect and roaming rates and slight erosion of subscription and traffic revenues. EBITDA (before other items) improved to HUF13.14 billion from HUF12.23 billion as a result of cost saving initiatives and modifications of its telecom tax burdens, and EBIT improved by 8.3% to HUF9.32 billion, driven it said, by EBITDA change. Third-quarter capital expenditure – excluding licences – was HUF700 million lower in Q3 2013 at HUF2.28 billion, as the year-earlier figure contained high customer relationship management (CRM)-related developments costs.
Operationally speaking, Telenor Hungary added a net 32,000 new subscriptions during the period under review, reaching 3.487 million at 30 September. The company says its market share (based on ‘active’ SIM cards) stood at 31.41% by 1 October, up slightly from 31.33% three months earlier. However, blended ARPU decreased compared to Q3 2012, mainly due to the negative effect of a cut in interconnect fees.
Telenor Hungary says it has reached some important milestones recently with the extension of the spectrum agreements, the launch of the new unlimited tariffs and a renewed 4G service allowing for an improved customer experience. It spent HUF27 billion on extending its frequency contracts with the government, and now has a 9.8MHz (duplex) block in the 900MHz band, and a 30MHz (duplex) block in the 1800MHz band until 2022. Telenor says this enabled the company to switch on a maximum 150Mbps 4G service on 10 October. It plans now to embark on an ambitious network rollout and spend over HUF10 billion on its 3G and 4G networks within a year to improve coverage in the countryside and increase mobile internet speeds in towns. Customers will experience a significant improvement in countryside broadband coverage as it looks to triple the number of its 4G base transceiver stations (BTS) and build new 3G BTS as well.