Mobistar announces turnover up 2.25 %

Mobistar publishes its results for the 2009 financial year today. The operator has reported turnover and a net result higher than the guidance. The EBITDA margin on service revenues and the investment level are in line with expectations. The organic cash-flow and the net result will enable the operator to pay out a dividend for a total amount of 273 million euros, or a total dividend amount of 4.55 euros per share. Mobistar also announced a specific development plan for 2010 to pursue its continued growth.

Key facts:

• Mobistar's consolidated turnover grew by 2.25 % in 2009, exceeding the company's target of generating stable turnover.
• At the end of December 2009, the Mobistar group had a total of 3,827,268 active customers for mobile telephony compared with 3,818,291 active customers in December 2008.
• In 2009, the operator counted record sales of mobile phones: 915,000 handsets compared with 725,000 in 2008; revenues from handset sales increased with 39.5 %.
• The number of mobile Internet customers rose by 77.4 % in 2009, to reach 85,281 at the end of the financial year.
• The share of mobile data in service revenues was 28.7 % at the end of December 2009, compared with 21.8 % at the end of 2008.
• At the end of the 2009 financial year, Mobistar had 38,038 ADSL customers, an increase of 60.1 % compared with the end of 2008. The number of active lines in fixed telephony reached 149,700 at the end of 2009, an increase of 22.7 % compared with the end of 2008.
• The EBITDA margin of total service revenues reached 39.2 % at the end of the 2009 financial year, close to forecasts.
• The net result of the Mobistar group was 260.3 million euros at the end of December 2009, which was above the target range of between 240 and 260 million euros.
• Mobistar invested 146.1 million euros in 2009, which represents 10.1 % of service revenues, as planned initially.
• In October 2009, the Board of Directors of VOXmobile decided to adopt the Orange brand and change the name of the company to Orange S.A.
• Thanks to the agreement signed in November 2009 for the acquisition of the business and carrier activities of KPN Belgium for 65 million euros, Mobistar will reinforce its B2B division.
• The Board of Directors of Mobistar will propose the payment of an ordinary dividend of 2.90 euros per share and an extraordinary dividend of 1.65 euro per share, and will submit it for approval to the General Meeting on 5 May 2010.

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