As HT’s competitors, A1 and Tele2, published their 2018 results, we are bringing you some key takes from them.

The parent companies of HT’s largest competitors, Tele2 and Telekom Austria (A1) published their 2018 preliminary results and we bring you some key takes regarding their performance on the Croatian market. To make the results comparable we transferred Tele2’s results into EUR by using the latest exchange rate.

A1

When observing A1’s financial results in 2018, revenues in the Croatian segment amounted to EUR 444.5m, which represents an increase of 1.6%. Although the Croatian segment observed lower revenues from visitor roaming and lower interconnection revenues, they were compensated by the strong demand for mobile WiFi routers and higher equipment revenues. Revenues from visitor roaming declined due to prices within the A1 Group and with other companies being lowered and not compensated by higher data usage.

Furthermore, higher costs and expenses were more than offset by revenue growth, which even excluding the abovementioned one-off effect, led to a slight EBITDA increase of 0.4%

Operating income amounted to EUR 7.6m, which is a 41.4% decrease YoY. This decrease could be attributed to a high D&A of the brad value.

Tele2

Turning our attention to Tele2, their Croatian segment observed an increase in revenues of 14% YoY, amounting to EUR 186m. This increase was mostly driven by a rise in end-user service revenue (+23% YoY).

In November 2018, the Croatian government decided to further reduce the spectrum fees, also with retrospective effect. The decision had a EUR 11.3m positive effect on adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter, of which EUR 1.4m relating to lower cost in the quarter and EUR 9.8m relating to previous periods. The adjusted EBITDA for 2018 amounted to EUR 40.8m.

 The customer base increased 7% compared with year end 2017, driven by Unlimited data on smartphones and mobile broadband, and ASPU grew by 7%.