Danish telco TDC, the country’s leading operator in terms of subscribers, has published its financial report for the three months ended 30 September 2014, reporting a 4.8% year-on-year decline in revenue to DKK5.64 billion (USD952.27 million), down from DKK5.93 billion in 3Q13. The company attributed the negative development to tougher regulation of international roaming charges and mobile termination rates (MTRs) and a decline in revenues from domestic landline services and mobile handsets. Meanwhile, EBITDA dropped 3.1% from DKK2.59 billion in 3Q13 to DKK2.51 billion in the third quarter of 2014, while gross profit declined by 4.3% to DKK4.18 billion. However, profit for the period surged up to DKK712 million, an 18.7% improvement y-o-y, due to the non-recurring positive impact on deferred taxes in Q3 2013 resulting from the reduced Danish corporate income tax rate.
In operational terms, TDC reported 2.116 million residential mobile revenue generating units (RGUs) at end-September 2014, down from 2.280 million reported in 3Q13, while broadband RGUs reached 629,000, up from 627,000 at end-September 2013. Mobile APRU decreased marginally to DKK119 in the period under review, while broadband APRU increased to DKK183.
Carsten Dilling, president and CEO at TDC, said: ‘Through the acquisition of Get, and the strategic partnership with Trefor, the TDC Group has, within the last months, taken a significant step to expand its future business potential… The acquisition of the Norwegian cable TV company Get has expanded our network by more than 700,000 homes passed in the high ARPU consumer segments (including ~500,000 existing customers), and given us access to advanced fibre-based business solutions… The TDC Group results for Q3, show that the organic revenue development (-2.8%) improved compared with H1. However, the challenges in the domestic mobile market continued with an unsatisfactory net loss of 23,000 residential mobile subscribers in Q3, while business mobile ARPU continued [to suffer] under pressure, with a y-o-y reduction of 12%.’