Russian national operator Rostelecom reported revenues of RUB 163.01 billion for the fourth quarter of 2020, up by 23 percent year-on-year. Mobile revenues grew by 15 percent, and income from digital services soared by 53 percent. OIBDA of the group increased 10 percent to RUB 44.5 billion, while the OIBDA margin dropped by 3.3 percentage points, to 27.3 percent.
The results are presented pro forma for the acquisition of the mobile operator Tele2 Russia. Rostelecom's net loss widened to RUB 2.1 billion from RUB 0.8 billion in the year-earlier period.
Capital expenditure, excluding state programmes, declined by 16 percent to RUB 36.2 billion. Free cash flow of the group was RUB 17.9 billion, up from RUB 15.7 billion, and the net debt dropped by 9 percent year-on-year to RUB 362.2 billion at the end of 2020.
Annual revenues and OIBDA are expected to grow by 5 percent this year, compared to increases of 15 and 14 percent respectively in 2020. Capital expenditure, excluding state programmes, will amount to RUB 110-115 billion in 2021, up slightly from RUB 107 billion last year.
Rostelecom ended the year with 13.5 million internet subscribers, up by 2 percent from 2019. The residential broadband base also increased by 2 percent, to 12.4 million, and corporate users of broadband and VPN services increased by 5 percent, to 1.1 million. Pay-TV subscribers totaled 10.8 million, up by 4 percent, and the figure included 6.1 million IPTV subscribers, up by 9 percent. IP telephony customers grew by 65 percent to 160,000, while the local telephony subscriber base dropped by 10 percent to 14.0 million.
Mobile subscribers reached 46.6 million at year-end, up by 1.5 percent, and the number of mobile internet users rose 20 percent on an annual basis. Data traffic increased 48 percent year-on-year to 1,442 PB in Q4, including MVNOs.
