MOSCOW, November 21 (RIA Novosti) – Russian state-controlled telecoms firm Rostelecom posted an IFRS net profit of 9.9 billion rubles ($314 million) in July-September 2012, up 8 percent on the same period last year, the company said on Wednesday.
The figure was above a consensus forecast of 8.5 billion rubles from analysts polled by RIA Novosti.
The company’s revenue for the quarter increased 2 percent year-on-year to 77 billion rubles while OIBDA went down two percent year-on-year to 29.4 billion rubles, with OIBDA margin falling to 38.2 percent from 39.9 percent.
“During the third quarter, we were actively involved in the construction of our mobile networks in selected regions, primarily where Rostelecom already has mobile operations or uses frequency licences obtained through the acquisition of Sky Link, which was completed at the end of July,” Rostelecom President Alexander Provotorov said.
“Following the test launch of our first 3G network in the Irkutsk region, the mobile data traffic in the region increased by 1.5 times. This clearly indicates that we are moving in the right direction to meet our clients’ needs. Our successful participation in the LTE licence tender process was also among the key developments of the third quarter.”
The company’s broadband Internet subscriber base for the third quarter rose 12 percent to 8.9 million subscribers and the Pay TV subscriber base grew 11 percent year-on-year to 6.4 million users.