NWT doubles RAS sales revenue in 2009 by 7%
ST. PETERSBURG. April 12 (Interfax) - North-West Telecom (NWT) posted 26.295 billion rubles in sales revenue according to Russian accounting standards (RAS) for 2009, which is an increase of 7.2% from 2008, the company said in its financial reporting.
NWT's sales revenue from sales of telecom services increased by 6% to 24.104 billion rubles.
Operational costs in 2009 went up by 16.2% to 23.987 billion rubles. Profit from sales dropped by 40.6% to 2.308 billion rubles while pretax profit went down by 7.7% to 4.406 billion rubles.
NWT's short-term accounts receivable increased from 3.092 billion rubles on January 1 to 3.567 billion rubles as of January 31. Short-term accounts payable dropped from 3.927 billion rubles to 3.335 billion rubles.
The company's net profit in 2009 dropped b 4% to 3.47 billion rubles.
The statement said the NWT's EBITDA increased in 2009 to 10.818 billion rubles while the EBITDA margin went up by 1.8 of a percentage point to 41%.
In 2009, the NWT's investment program came to 7 billion rubles, of which 2.2 billion rubles was from equipment in CJSC Petersburg Transit Telecom, which was included on NWT's balance sheet following a planned liquidation.
NWT primarily invested in projects with a period of return reaching up five years such as the expansion of broadband networks, as well as building fiber optic transmissions lines in the North Cacausus Federal District. In 2009, a total of 88,900 numbers were brought online along with 269,600 xDSL ports, 69,400 PON ports and 2,976 kilometers in fiber optic lines. Total digitization of the company's network reached 68%.
Last year, NWT boosted its subscriber base for broadband services to 894,000 persons. The company's market share (in revenue) reached up to 47%.
The company's net debt at the end of 2009 came to 16.765 billion rubles, of which 48% is long-term debt.
NWT is the incumbent fixed-line operator in Russia's northwest. Svyazinvest owns 50.76% of voting shares (39.528% of equity).