- Q1 results support the goal of becoming No. 1
- Customers attracted by contracts
- Revenues reach CZK 6.1 billion, net profit exceeds CZK 1 billion
- Total minutes of use increase by almost a third, the number of SMS sent grows by 7%
Prague, 13 May 2004 - In Q1 2004, T-Mobile Czech Republic recorded a significant increase in customer numbers and the volume of services used. The number of customers increased by 44,000 (441,000 year-on-year) to reach 3.991 million and the number of minutes used by customers even grew by almost one third year-on-year. "These results clearly confirm that our goal of becoming No. 1 in the Czech market is absolutely realistic," says T-Mobile Managing Director Roland Mahler, commenting on the results.
In September 2003, T-Mobile came up with a completely new concept of products for various customer groups. Specialized tariffs (such as tariffs for students and foreign residents living in the Czech Republic) and other offers (for example, weekend calls and Twist Bonus benefits) attracted hundreds of thousands of customers and the other operators soon copied many of them. "But we were the first to bring these special offers to the market and that is something customers don't forget. We would like to thank them for that," Mahler adds.
The growth in customer numbers was reflected in the number of standard tariffs activated. Not only new customers chose them but a number of prepaid Twist users also switched to standard tariffs. "We are pleased that the number of clients who are aware of the advantages of standard tariff programmes is constantly growing. In this respect, we are the most successful operator in the Czech market and we will surely maintain this position," Mahler said, adding: "Moreover, we welcomed our four-millionth customer on 19 April, overtaking even Ceský Telecom in customer numbers."
| Q1 2004 | Q1 2003 | Change % | |
| Customer numbers ('000) | 3 991 | 3 550 | 12.4 |
| Contract customers | 947 | 721 | 31.3 |
| Twist customers | 3 044 | 2 829 | 7.6 |
| New customers | 43 000 | 40 000 | 7.5 |
| Contract customers | 58 000 | 49 000 | 18.4 |
| Twist customers | -15 000 | - 9 000 | - |
| Total revenuse (CZK million) | 6 125 | 5 692 | 7.6 |
| EBITDA (CZK million) | 2 775 | 2 833 | (2.0) |
| Net profit (CZK million) | 1 040 | 1 038 | 0.2 |
| ARPU (CZK) | 452 | 472 | (4.2) |
| Total SMS sent (million) | 442 | 413 | 7.0 |
For Q1 2004, T-Mobile's total revenues reached CZK 6.125 billion, which is 7.6 percent more than a year earlier. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) dropped by 2 percent to CZK 2.775 billion; however, net profit increased to CZK 1.040 billion. Despite significant growth in minutes of use amounting to 29.1 percent and a 7-percent increase in the number of SMS sent, average revenue per user dropped to CZK 452.
"The increase in the minutes of use shows that we have succeeded in achieving our intention announced early last September: To divide customers into specific groups and offer these groups exactly the services they need. The popularity of our data tariffs was also significantly reflected in the operating results for the first quarter of this year - the volume of data transmitted increased by almost fifty times compared to the same period last year. At the same time, the number of customers using multimedia messages is growing. The number of MMS sent is more than eleven times higher year-on-year," T?Mobile's Executive Vice President Marketing Jirí Dvorjancanský said.
"We are the only global operator in the Czech market. We are part of the T-Mobile Group, which is a member of the world's strongest alliance of mobile operators, FreeMove. This allows us to bring such a combination of prices and services to the market which other operators can hardly offer to their customers. Incidentally, T-Mobile now also appears on telephone displays in the former Westel network in Hungary, which is now part of the T-Mobile Group," Jirí Dvorjancanský added.