3 Group reported first-half revenues of HKD 43.16 billion, up 7 percent from a year earlier, while EBITDA rose 5 percent to HKD 14.77 billion, its parent company CK Hutchison said. Excluding currency effects, revenues were down 4 percent and EBITDA fell 5 percent, due mainly to the difficult Italian market.
The figures exclude a HKD 15.5 billion impairment charge to write down the value of goodwill on the Italian business and HKD 25.3 billion in proceeds from selling the mobile operator's passive infrastructure to Cellnex.
Hutchison said the 3 Group focused on limiting churn in the period, while margins were affected by the incremental costs of the towers deals. The operator ended the period with 43.79 million customers, down 2 percent from six months earlier due a contraction in the prepaid base to 19.06 million. On an annual basis, customer numbers were down 3 percent, but contract subscribers increased 3 percent to 24.73 million.
The number of active subscribers fell 2 percent year-on-year and by 1 percent compared to December to 37.99 million, including 24.06 million on postpaid contracts. The drop was due mainly to fewer customers in Italy and the UK, with the other countries adding customers. Net ARPU per active customer fell 1 percent year-on-year to EUR 13.00 on a 12-month trailing basis.
The company said operations in the UK and Italy were showing signs of stabilisation, helped by the launch of the prepaid brand Very Mobile in Italy last year and the gradual re-opening of economies following the pandemic. It will focus on further expansion of 5G services in order to improve results in the second half of the year.
Total data usage
increased 30 percent to 3,331 petabytes in first half of 2021. Average data usage per active customer reached 92 GB in the first half, up from 68.6 GB in the same period in 2020.
