Eastern Europe Telecom-Week

Stockholm-based telecoms group TeliaSonera has reported that its consolidated net profit in the quarter ended 30 June 2008 rose by 7.8 percent year-on-year to SEK 4.13 billion (USD 685 million), from SEK 3.83 billion a year earlier, on total revenues that climbed 5.7 percent on an annual basis to SEK 25.27 billion.

EBITDA in the second quarter (excluding one-off items) increased by 6.1 percent to SEK 7.98 billion, widening the EBITDA margin slightly to 31.6 percent from 31.4 percent in 2Q 2007. TeliaSonera’s growth in the most recent quarter was heavily driven by mobile operations in Russia, Turkey and its Eurasia division.

Alcatel-Lucent has been selected by VTEL Holding to design, deploy and maintain the first commercial WiMAX network in Georgia. VTEL Georgia plans to launch the new WiMAX services under the brand MAXIMALI in major cities by September 2008. The company plans to continue its investments during the following years to cover the other parts of the country.

Under the terms of the turnkey contract Alcatel-Lucent will supply a comprehensive infrastructure solution, including WiMAX Rev-e radio access – base stations, wireless access controllers, and operations and maintenance center (OMC). The core IP network will be based on Alcatel-Lucent Service Router family. Alcatel-Lucent will also provide the 9500 Microwave Cross Connect (MXC) system to support the backhaul requirements for the network, as well as network-planning and engineering, integration optimization and commissioning services.

Telecom company Pannon did not reach revenue growth in 2Q, mostly due to decreased mobile interconnect fees by NHH in January. The company, however, significantly saved on its costs thus reaching EBITDA growth. At the same time, investment activity at the company has been reaching a two-year record level.

The number of subscriptions increased by 13,000 during the quarter reaching a closing balance of 3.4 million. It means that its market share was 33.3 percent by the end of Q2 2008.

Pannon CEO Ove Fredheim said: “We think that Hungary has become a mature market, where demand for post-paid and innovative services continues to grow. Our mobile internet solutions are, however, still popular with our clients, and we see great opportunities in further developing quality of our network and services in order to meet advanced client demand.”

Vodafone has released its financial results for the quarter ended 30 June 2008 with the following highlights:

• Revenue of GBP 9.8 billion, up 19.1 percent
• Group data revenue up 50.6 percent to USD 664 million
• Total communications services now at 15 percent of Group revenue
• Proportionate mobile customer base of 269.0 million, up 8.5 million in the quarter

And the following highlights in the European market:

• Service revenue up 15.7 percent driven by strong foreign exchange
• Spain particularly impacted by economic and competitive effects

Arun Sarin, Chief Executive, commented: “Notwithstanding this more challenging operating environment, we continue to benefit from a diversity of assets and services, with strong revenue growth in EMAPA and another good quarter of data revenue growth offsetting weakness in Spain. Whilst we expect revenue around the bottom of the outlook range, our continued focus on cost reduction enables us to reiterate our operating profit and cash flow guidance for the year.”

Telenor has released its second quarter results for 2008, reporting that its pro forma revenues (including Kyivstar) increased by three per cent compared to the second quarter of 2007, reaching NOK 27.2 billion (USD 5.31 billion). Underlying revenues increased by seven per cent in the same period. Pro forma EBITDA before other income and expenses was NOK 9.3 billion (USD 1.82 billion).

Telenor’s mobile operations added six million subscriptions during the second quarter.

With respect to Eastern Europe, Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO of Telenor, said: “Kyivstar continued to consolidate its position as the strong market leader in Ukraine and confirmed the impressive performance from previous quarters with excellent results also for the second quarter.”

The Telekom Austria Group announced today that the Vice Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Fixed Net segment Rudolf Fischer will resign as of 31 August 2008 due to personal reasons. However, he will continue to support the Fixed Net segment for another year to guarantee an efficient transition.

Peter Michaelis, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said: “I accept Mr. Fischer’s decision and I’d like to thank him on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board for his excellent work. In the last 10 years Rudolf Fischer has made a major contribution to transforming the former monopolist into a modern and competitive market player and thus to shaping the Austrian telecommunication market.”

Boris Nemsic, CEO of Telekom Austria Group and CEO of mobilkom austria will take over Rudolf Fischer’s position and head the Fixed Net segment as of 1 September 2008.

Telekom Austria Group has mobile subsidiaries in Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia under their mobilkom austria group wing, they have grown as follows over the past two years:
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Russian services conglomerate Sistema is in discussions to sell its stake in long-distance provider Multiregional TransitTelecom (MTT). Kirill Semenov, a spokesman for Sistema, said: “We are in talks to sell our stake, 50 percent of voting shares, in MTT”.

The state anti-monopoly service said on Tuesday Russian telecom company Synterra had filed for permission to buy 100 percent of MTT, Synterra however, declined to comment. MTT says it has 6.8 percent of the Russian market for domestic and international long-distance phone calls. Its revenues exceeded USD 1 billion in 2007.

In April, Russian media reported that Sistema’s board of directors had approved selling 50 percent of MTT to Synterra for around USD 400 million.

The remaining 50 percent of MTT is owned by Gamma Capital, which Danish lawyer Jeffrey Galmond owns. As we recently reported, Galmond has decided to sell off all his Russian telecom assets, including his stake in Russia’s No.3 mobile carrier, MegaFon.

Latvian telecommunications service provider Lattelecom’s permanent Internet user base has jumped by 23 percent during the first six months of this year, to 168,700 subscribers.

Lattelecom has the largest number of customers in the Riga region and Jurmala, with over 77,800 subscribers. The number of Internet subscriptions outside the Riga region has climbed by 19 percent year-on-year. The regions where the company registered the most significant increase in the number of users are Jekabpils and Talsi, where the Internet subscriber base rose by 31 percent. The cities with the largest Internet subscriber bases are Jelgava with over 10,000, followed by Daugavpils and Liepaja. The growth of Lattelecom’s Internet subscriber base outside the Riga region was mainly generated by extended computer availability, increased Internet content quality, as well as the launch of the Lattelecom TV service.

MegaFon-Povolzhye (an area of MegaFon’s national network) opens unilateral roaming for subscribers on the Mobitel (owned by VimpelCom)  network in Georgia under the GSM 1800 standard.

As of the 1Q 2008 MegaFon, is the third largest cellular operator of the Russian Federation serving more than 36.97 million subscribers, a 22 percent market share, whilst Mobitel is the third largest operator in Georgia with 146,200 subscribers, a 5.27 percent market share. The market share’s of both countries are charted below:

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T-Mobile, the largest mobile provider in the Czech Republic, and Amdocs announced today that T-Mobile will use Amdocs’ CES Enterprise Product Catalog 7.5 software as a central product information repository for services, handset and accessories offered via its self-service portal.

T-Mobile companies in Germany and in the UK, that serve a combined customer base of more than 50 million customers, have also deployed Amdocs Enterprise Product Catalog.

This agreement extends a six-year relationship between T-Mobile Czech Republic and Amdocs. T-Mobile Czech Republic was among the first Amdocs Billing customers to upgrade to Amdocs Billing 7, and also uses Amdocs’ customer management products.