Belgacom's net income went up 30 percent in the first half on the back of strong performance with its TV unit and mobile unit Proximus. The company's net income rose to EUR 564 million from EUR 434 million in the year-ago period. Group revenue went up only slightly to EUR 3.04 billion, versus EUR 3.03 billion, while EBITDA fell 2.8 percent to EUR 1.08 billion from EUR 1.11 billion in H1 2006. Belgacom has upgraded its 2007 full year guidance for its fixed as well as for its mobile business. The company now expects that group revenue decline will be 1 percent with a flat EBITDA margin. Proximus revenues are expected to rise by 1 percent excluding mobile termination rate cuts impact, and a decline of 4 percent including the impact of the rate cuts.
Year-over-year, the revenues from fixed line services increased by 0.5 percent to EUR 1.82 billion. The decline of traditional voice revenue was limited to 4.9 percent and fully offset by revenue growth from internet, TV and ICT activities. Internet revenue growth reached 12 percent driven by higher DSL volumes and good results in terms of ARPU. The company ended June with 1.18 million ADSL lines, up 11 percent year-on-year. Belgacom added 51,683 new TV subscribers in the first half and exceeds expectations by bringing its total Belgacom TV customer base to 191.348 at the end of June.
Mobile communications services' revenue decline was limited to 3.1 percent. Excluding the impact of mobile termination rate cuts, the revenue increased by 0.2 percent. Proximus added 104,388 new active customers in the first half, of which 69,564 in the second quarter. This brings the total number of active customers to 4.42 million at the end of June 2007. Net service revenue declined 2.9 percent with the mobile termination rate cuts being the main driver of the voice services revenue evolution (-5.7%), fully offsetting the positive impact of customer growth. Excluding the impact of the MTR cuts, net service revenue increased by 0.6 percent. Data revenue -before deduction of free traffic- grew 28 percent year-over-year and represents about 23 percent of the total mobile revenue. Blended net ARPU stood at EUR 35.6, compared to EUR 37.7 at the end of June 2006. The decrease is primarily driven by the impact of the mobile termination rate cuts in November 2006 and May 2007, as well as by the success of the new Pay&Go and Smile tariffs plans.
