Mobistar once again strengthened its presence in Belgium during 2002, with 2,305,390 active customers at the end of December, which represents a growth of over 6.5% in the year. During the last quarter Mobistar achieved net growth of 75,000 customers. The breakdown between prepaid and postpaid remained stable. Mobistar ended 2002 with consolidated turnover of almost 1 billion euro. The net profit will be slightly better than forecast in November 2002.
After three months of mobile number portability, Mobistar is still the only operator benefiting from the operation, with more than 20,000 net additional customers. These have swelled the postpaid Mobistar customer base.
The ARPU ("Average Revenue Per User") grew very strongly. The ARPU continued to grow during the second half, both for prepaid and postpaid customers. For the year 2002 as a whole, Mobistar reported an average ARPU of 33.5 euro per month per active customer, which represents growth of 8.5% in comparison with the ARPU for 2001 (30.9 euro per month and per active customer).
Mobistar will go into its financial results in more detail on 27 February 2003. It already appears that Mobistar's net profit for the 2002 tax year will be slightly higher than had been initially forecast.
