The Croatian incumbent Hrvastki Telekom (HT) ended the first quarter with 488,000 pay-TV customers, or 17.8% more than a year earlier.
The strong growth, according to the company in its latest set of results, was in part down the acquisition of the pay-DTT service Evo TV, which received the approval of the regulator HAKOM at the beginning of March.
HT also says that take-up of the convergent offer Magenta 1, which remains its core offer, grew by 10.2% in the Q1 to over 230,000.
The company’s capital expenditure in Q1 amounted to HRK386 million (€51.9 million). Although this was below that in Q1 2018, the outlook for this year remains the same as announced, namely around the 2018 level.
As of the end of Q1, HT’s NGA network provided 59% of households with broadband speeds of more than 30Mbps and 22% with speeds above 100Mbps.
The company had consolidated revenues of HRK1,775 million in Q1 (-1.3% lower than a year earlier). Its EBITDA was HRK673 million (+3.4%) and net profit HRK190 million (+14.1%).
Commenting on the results, Konstantinos Nempis, the new president of the management board of HT, said: “The strong business results in the first quarter of 2019 show a continuation of successful business operations of Hrvatski Telekom. Such position of the Company, its investment capacity, access to state-of-the-art technologies and, most of all, its competent and talented people, will enable Hrvatski Telekom to leap forward in the era of digital world, creating a positive difference for the Croatian society. In the next period, strategic focus will be on simplification and digitization of customer experience and Company’s operations to be faster and more agile, and on strong investments in high speed fixed and mobile networks, enabling our customers and Croatian citizens to connect to the opportunities of digitisation, all leading to a sustainable growth of Hrvatski Telekom.”
