Archive for July 24th, 2007

Telenor Earnings for Q2 2007 – Earnings Up But Operating Losses Remain

tn-1.JPGThis post is a brief overview of how Telenor did in Pakistan for second quarter of 2007 . I’ve included the extracts from the reports available at Telenor’s website. Most indicators are good: Revenues have soared, subscriber share is steadily increasing. The EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) is positive for the first time, though the ebitda margin is only 7%. Another thing which needs to be noted that Telenor’s operating losses have reduced in 2007. Yes, they lose money. The losses are  due to leasing line costs and capital expenditure, among other factors. I still rate Telenor “buy” but at the time of this writing they are trading a bit on the high side.

The average revenue per user (ARPU) has stabilized around Rs 280 per month for Pakistan – its low but that’s the reality of the market. The bottom chart below shows the minutes of use and the average price per minute, which for Pakistan is around Rs 2/min. Interesting to compare the same for Bangladesh.

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