Meteor, the mobile company Eircom acquired two years ago for €420m from Western Wireless, has turned out to be the ace in Eircom’s pack, delivering 33pc subscriber growth in the past 12 months.
For the year ended 31 March, Eircom reported revenues of €1.95bn up 10pc on the year. Fixed line revenues stood at €1.65bn, up 2pc on the year.
Group operating profits stood at €240m, up 3pc on last year.
“The group has delivered solid revenue growth, strong subscriber numbers and consistent EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) both in the mobile and fixed line segments for the quarter and the past financial period through 31 March,” said chief executive Rex Comb.
Comb said that as of last week broadband customers can now move freely and seamlessly between various broadband providers including moving from Eircom’s network. “In addition, Eircom has agreed to implement intra-operator migrations by September of 2007.”
Eircom said that it invested €294m on capital expenditure (capex) in the past year, including increasing capacity, demand-led growth, DSL rollout and capex relating to Meteor.
Eircom said it paid €44m for its 3G license.
The company said that significant DSL broadband additions of 57,000 new subscribers for the last quarter resulted in a total subscriber base of 417,000, up 16pc on the previous year.
However, also included in the figures was a mention that excluding DSL broadband, total PSTN and ISDN channels increased by 4pc on last year.
The company said this morning that as of 16 May, its mobile wing Meteor had 849,000 mobile subscribers, including 29,000 new subscribers. Meteor delivered an EBIDTA of €54m for the year.
By John Kennedy
