Russian mobile operator Megafon saw its third-quarter revenues grow by 9 percent year-on-year to RUB 77.543 billion, driven by strong growth in data services and equipment sales. OIBDA increased by 10.5 percent to RUB 35.387 billion, and the OIBDA margin was up 0.6 percentage points to 45.6 percent. The net profit totaled RUB 15.321 billion, up by 2.9 percent year-on-year. Capital expenditure of the operator was RUB 10.862 billion in the quarter, up by 51.5 percent from a year earlier, and free cash flow rose 13.9 percent to RUB 28.037 billion.
The subscriber base reached 68.3 million at the end of September, up by 5.4 percent yer-on-year. Megafon said revenues from data services jumped by 24.2 percent to RUB 12.632 billion, driven by the increasing number of smartphones on the network and the expansion of the LTE network. The LTE network was available in 31 regions or around 30 percent of the Russian population at the end of the quarter.
Megafon maintained its outlook for high single-digit growth in revenues over the full year and raised its OIBDA margin target to at least 44 percent, after the strong performance in the first nine months of the year. The capex budget was cut by RUB 5 billion, to RUB 50-55 billion in 2013.
