Romtelecom/OTE toughen it out
Published: 11.00 Europe/London, May 6, 2011 by Chris Dziadul

The Romanian incumbent telco Romtelecom ended the first quarter with 1,064,710 subscribers to its satellite, cable and IPTV services.

Although this was 14.9% more than in the same period last year, it arguably represented a slowdown in growth in the take-up of its highly successful DTH service Dolce.

Its cable operation NextGen meanwhile pursued a dual brand strategy, resulting in q-o-q revenues rising by 103% and RGUs by 312%, and the IPTV platform Dolce Interactiv had over 33,000 triple play subscribers at the end of the quarter.

Romtelecom’s revenues in Q1 amounted to €166.3 million, or 10.9% less than in the same period last year. Furthermore, its operating income (EBIT) slipped into negative territory (-€16.7 million) from the previous year’s €13.3 million.

Greece’s OTE, Romtelcom’s parent company, also had a difficult quarter, with a 12.6% y-o-y fall to revenues to €1,224.8 million and 54.1% reduction in net income to €30.2 million.

On the credit side, its IPTV subscriber total grew by 140.9% to 56,464 in the year to March 31.