Telia Lietuva : Games of Thrones and Chernobyl Contributed to Telia Lietuva Results

Over the first six months this year, revenue of the leading Lithuanian telecommunications company Telia Lietuva went down by 1.5 per cent to EUR 181.1 million, compared to the same period last year; nevertheless, revenue of the Company, excluding voice transit traffic, increased by 2.2 per cent. During the first half of the year, EBITDA, excluding non-recurring items, grew by 1.1 per cent to EUR 63.1 million. Cash flows during the first six months skyrocketed by 31.3 per cent and reached EUR 30.7 million.

During the second quarter of this year, revenue of integrated telecommunication, IT and TV service provider, Telia Lietuva, eased by 1.1 per cent and amounted to EUR 92 million, while EBITDA, excluding non-recurring items, remained stable and amounted to EUR 31.2 million. Net profit of the Company declined by 6.7 per cent to EUR 12.9 million, during the period from April to June this year.

The continued purposeful reduction of low margin international voice and data transit volumes had a negative effect on financial indicators of the Company, however, the growing sales of the main communication services, equipment and IT as well as continued operational efficiency and cost control programme offset the negative impact.

'The benefits of Telia Lietuva services' synergy brought by Telia One offer reached a new record in June - over the two years' period 50 thousand users have used this converged offer. Whereas a jump of the smart Telia television sales amounting to 237 thousand subscribers was contributed to by the popularity of the globally renowned HBO series The Games of Thrones and Chernobyl. We have changed the slogan of the company into 'Only Life is More Interesting' so as to demonstrate that we will continue to invest in technology, development of innovation and sustainable development of society, which, in turn, means even greater competition and more benefits for consumers,' Dan Strömberg, CEO of Telia Lietuva, said.

Compared to the same period last year, revenue from TV services during the first half of 2019 increased by 12.6 per cent, from sales of equipment by 9.1 per cent, from IT services by 8.1 per cent and from mobile services by 5.6 per cent.

Despite the saturated and extremely competitive market, the number of Telia television customers in Lithuania continued to grow and increased by 7.7 per cent to 237 thousand whereas the number of fibre-optic Internet users grew by 5.1 per cent to 286 thousand.

To provide better Internet experience to people, in April we started upgrading household terminal equipment by replacing it with a new one free of charge. The Company will invest EUR 1.8 million into replacement of terminal equipment.

By the end of June, the number of Telia Lietuva mobile network stations which cover entire Lithuania increased as the network was supplemented with 356 new stations reaching the total of 3,168 base stations in 1,390 locations in the country.

In the first six months of this year, Telia Lietuva technicians completed the main stage of IP network upgrade which started in 2017 and during the first half of this year, the Company invested EUR 20.7 million into development of fixed and mobile network. Telia Lietuva investments account for more than 60 per cent of all investments made in Lithuania's telecommunications market.

In May, the Company's shareholders were paid a record-high dividends of EUR 0.08 per share for the year 2018 - in total EUR 46.6 million.