In the first quarterly performance report since the separation from Telekom Romania Communications S.A., Telekom Romania Mobile Communications S.A. announces for Q3 2021 a 7.1% increase year on year of the postpaid subscribers’ base, a strategically vital customer segment, for the sixth quarter in a row, a notable achievement.
Thus, at September 30, 2021, Telekom Romania Mobile Communications S.A. (TKRM) registered 1.72 million postpaid subscribers, while the total number of customers (postpaid and prepaid) reached 3.602 million.
“The first nine months of 2021 confirms our determination on the Romanian market. We still have challenging times ahead of us, but I am grateful that our team managed to deliver robust financial results. For me and for our strategy going forward, strong revenues streams and cost efficiency are important stepping-stones. They allow us to focus primarily on creating value for our customers and innovating, whether this means or improved customer journeys or technological advancements”, said Dina Tsybulskaya, Telekom Romania Mobile’s CEO.
“After a successful separation process from Telekom Romania Communications, Telekom Romania Mobile is set to be new agile, digital and customer-oriented, that will put the customer in the middle of everything that the organization is doing. We have a great team that will continue to further build from its new headquarter organized in an agile way”, said Nicolas Mahler, Chief Financial Officer, Telekom Romania Mobile Communications S.A.
At this moment, the mobile communications infrastructure of TKRM is fully upgraded to the 4G/LTE standard for data services, and covers now more than 98% of the population.
“Following sustained investments realized over the years, we are now operating a very powerful mobile network which allows us to offer a perfect customer experience to our customers”, Nicolas Mahler added.
In line with the priority of the company to provide reliable mobile coverage for all Romanians, all network infrastructure has been upgraded to support 4G/LTE data services and thus the 4G coverage has surpassed 98% of the population.
Moreover, Telekom Romania Mobile has already implemented 5G tests in its current spectrum. The technological tests involved the deployment of 5G antennas, from the Bucharest International Airport to the Capital center. The results showed over 300 Mbps download speed top performances. Average download values were approximately 150 Mbps, depending on the user specific applications or terminals and existing network traffic.
In the first nine months, the revenues of the company decreased by 10.3%, to 304 million euros. This fluctuation came, amongst others, from the influence brought in by the strategic shift from non-SIM only to SIM-only postpaid revenues. The organic revenues went down 8.6%, YoY, while the MTR impact was 8%. Nevertheless, due to business focus, the operator’s Q3 revenues registered a growth compared to previous quarter (+6.4%).
Total EBITDA for 9M 2021 stood at 71.2 million euro. “We are especially happy for the better performances recorded quarter over quarter. This is now for the third time in a row, which represent a constant improvement along all the 2021 quarters. In addition, excluding one-offs, the organic EBITDA shows strong improvement YoY. This will continue in Q4”, Nicolas Mahler stated.
Another major achievement is that the Adjusted Free Cash Flow remained positive in Q3 2021, and also for the entire nine months of the year. “We expect the positive status to continue also in the fourth quarter. It is the result of both strict cash discipline/cost control and of cross-functional efforts to improve efficiency along each business line. Cost focus from the past years (Cash for Growth) is now paying off even more and we will continue to push and optimize to have solid basis. With this we are ready to invest further”, added Nicolas Mahler.
Since the second half of 2018, Telekom Romania Mobile’s cost base continues to benefit from its long-running cost transformation program that successfully generates significant operational improvements. It is an important driver of the company’s sustained EBITDA and Cash for growth, which led to a significant YoY reduction of the cost base compared to Q3 2020.
“Telekom Mobile has been one of the frontrunners in RPA development in the last three years. The company used in Q3 over 160 automated processes. Going forward, we intend to grow at the same pace as we did in the past, doubling the number every year. This would only stand by the company having been designated one of the largest RPA farm in the country, by some of the leading developers it cooperates with”, concluded Nicolas Mahler.