Hrvatski Telekom Had Lower Revenue and Profit in 2019

Hrvatski Telekom Had Lower Revenue and Profit in 2019
Dražen Tomić - Tomich Productions

Hrvatski Telekom, the largest operator in Croatia, reported lower revenue and profit in 2019, but, at the same time, increased investments in the network. Total uncosolidated revenue was 1% lower than in 2018 while profit went down by 4,1%. HT will publish dividend proposal on 12 March 2020, together with audited annual results.

Total revenue of HT was at 7.704 billion kuna (1,04 billion euro), 79 million lower compared to 2018. Within this, revenue growth was achieved in Mobile, TV and System Solutions. EBITDA before exceptional items after leases in 2019 amounted to 2.908 billion and was 4.1% lower compared to 2018, mainly due to increased material, roaming and personnel costs. A high EBITDA margin was maintained at 37.7%.

In 2019, Hrvatski Telekom invested 1.9 billion kuna in infrastructure and development of innovative services, which is a 4.1% increase over the previous year. The company continued its capital investments in mobile and fixed broadband networks. The modernization has enabled almost all HT mobile locations to be equipped with LTE (98%). Beside 4G performance improvement, modernization established the prerequisites for successful 5G network introduction.

Modernization and implementation of the fixed access network of new generation has been focused on the fiber optic networks achieving realization of an additional 50,100 HH covered by FTTH technology in Q4. Total coverage with FTTH technology increased to 280,358 households. In total, HT achieved coverage available for 60.2% households with technologies that enable speed >30 Mbps from which 23.6% that enable speed >100 Mbps. The optical based access network is available for 438 thousand households.

During 2019 the company acquired at Zagreb Stock Exchange further 453,318 own shares, representing 0.6% of the company’s issued share capital. HT holds in total 453,318 company shares as at 31 December 2019. For the acquisition of shares in 2019, the company paid out an equivalent value of 73 million kuna.

"As the largest private investor in the digitalization of Croatia, we continue with bringing technology to every corner of Croatia to ensure equal opportunity for a quality life to all of our citizens. We invested the biggest amount of CAPEX in the last 10 years progressively turning around our service revenues, by increasing BB and TV customer bases and increasing mobile ARPUs via more for more propositions. The investment in our mobile network has enabled us to triple the capacity of the network and increased the user speed by 75%. We achieved availability of 4G mobile network service in the entire Croatian territory. Furthermore, the new, modernized equipment is 5G ready," said Konstantinos Nempis, CEO of Hrvatski Telekom.