Russian telecom operator MTS Group announced its revenue, Opex, profit and Capex for Q3 2018.
MTS quarterly revenue grew 11.7 percent to RUB 128 billion – fuelled by 12 percent rise in Russian telecom market revenue as well as increase in data consumption and digital service adoption across all the regions.
MTS has lost subscribers in both Russia and Ukraine. MTS’s mobile subscriber base fell 0.2 percent to 78 million in Russia. The mobile subscriber base of MTS in Ukraine dropped 1.8 percent to 19.9 million. MTS Armenia added mobile subscriber base by 2.1 percent to 2.2 million. MTS Belarus added mobile subscriber base by 1.5 percent to 5.4 million.
Adjusted OIBDA of MTS increased 21.6 percent to RUB 59.3 billion. The adoption of new IFRS standards boosted Adjusted OIBDA by an additional RUB 7 billion. Adjusted OIBDA margin increased to 46.3 percent.
MTS posted net loss of RUB 37 billion because of RUB 55.8 billion reserved towards the liability with respect to the investigation being conducted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in relation to its former operations in Uzbekistan.
Capital expenditures of MTS reached RUB 21.2 billion with Capex – revenue ratio of 16.6 percent. MTS Group spent RUB 55.4 billion in the first nine months of 2018, excluding purchases of licenses in Ukraine.
MTS has deployed over 4,000 base stations in Russia dedicating more than half for the 4G network construction.
MTS has recently acquired a data center in Russia, which further strengthens our position in the fast growing cloud services market. We acquired a stake in Youdo, the leading Russian online marketplace, Alexey Kornya, chief executive officer of MTS, said.
MTS Russia’s fixed business revenue fell 1.5 percent due to weakness in fixed telephony segment. The number of GPON users grew to 1.92 million. Its payTV market share reached 42.1 percent.
MTS said its network rollout in Ukraine was ahead of plan. 3G coverage reached 83 percent and 4G coverage reached 39 percent of population. BTS Belarus subscriber base grew to 5.4 million supported by 4G rollout and new tariff plan.
