Reporting results one day early, Mobistar has lowered its full-year guidance under pressure from sharpened competition and regulations and scrapped its dividend for 2013. The Belgian mobile operator now sees revenues for 2013 down 12 percent, EBITDA of over EUR 300 million and an operating cash flow of at least EUR 100 million. The operator expects results to stabilise in 2014.
Mobistar ended the second quarter with 3.33 million customers, a loss of 45,000. Still, the MVNO customer base grew to 1.07 million from 973,900. Including 105,400 customers in Luxembourg, Mobistar now has 4.509 million connections on the network, of which 69.1 percent postpaid customers.
Revenues for the first half weakened 5.7 percent from the year before to EUR 757 million, and EBITDA dropped 27.6 percent to EUR 68.8 million. Without regulatory effects, revenues would have been at EUR 788 million, a decline of 1.8 percent, and EBITDA would have been at EUR 32.3 million, down 13.9 percent. Mobistar said its efficiency programme made it possible to soften the EBITDA decrease by EUR 14 million.
Mobistar said it will continue its reorganisation programme, looking now to save EUR 50 million per year from 2014. The company also denounced the duopoly in the fixed market which it said allowed Belgacom and Telenet to finance their mobile services. Mobistar wants to use the regulated access to cable networks, when they open for resale.
