Brussels, 24 July 2015 – Today, Mobistar (Euronext Brussels: MOBB) publishes its results for the second quarter and first half of 2015.
Mobistar delivered healthy commercial and financial results in the second quarter and first half of 2015 thanks to its focus on execution and operational excellence. Mobistar confirms its ability to generate growth on its core mobile business both in volume, via a successful customer acquisition and retention strategy, and value, through a solid track record on data monetization and upsell. This has been made possible thanks to relentless efforts to further improve the organisational efficiency and a dynamic reallocation of resources towards investments in customer experience and loyalty:
- Mobistar’s customer base increased in all segments in Belgium in the second quarter of 2015, compared to the first quarter of 2015: 1/ postpaid: +9.4 thousand; 2/ prepaid: +0.9 thousand; 3/ M2M/IOT: +45.9 thousand and MVNO: +280.0 thousand. This commercial performance comes mainly as a result of continuous improvements on customer experience, on-going investments to maintain 4G network leadership, changes operated in the distribution over the past 18 months, a strong commercial presence and well segmented product portfolio meeting customers’ demand and growing appetite for data.
- Mobistar Belgium’s 4G customer base grew 185 % in one year, nearly reaching 700,000. Total data traffic, both 3G and 4G, more than doubled compared to last year. In the month of June, 4G traffic almost overtook 3G traffic in volume. In Belgium, the postpaid annual rolling ARPU increased to 27.9 euros in the second quarter of 2015, from 27.7 euros a year ago. This confirms the ability of Mobistar to monetize data usage.
- Mobistar welcomes the consultation on the draft decision of the regulators regarding the revision of the wholesale tariffs for access to the cable networks. This draft decision is indeed a minimum mandatory element to establish a functioning regulatory framework for wholesale access to the cable networks. Notwithstanding clear improvements, the current draft decision can still be further improved to assure a sustainable profitable framework for alternative operators.
- In the first half of 2015 Mobistar delivered the following consolidated results:
- Mobistar successfully re-financed its 450 million euros long-term revolving credit facility expiring in December 2015. The new long term revolving credit facility, with an average maturity of 5 years, amounts to 420 million. At the same time Mobistar is generating sufficient free cash flows to start deleveraging its balance sheet with a net debt to EBITDA ratio below 2 times.
- Based on those results Mobistar reiterates its full year 2015 restated EBITDA guidance.
Mobistar’s Chief Executive Officer Jean Marc Harion commented: ‘The results achieved during the first half of 2015 show the relevance and consistency of the measures taken so far to strengthen our first challenger position on the mobile market. I would like to thank all Mobistar team members for their commitment to help our company attain this accomplishment. While we are at a competitive disadvantage on convergence compared with other market players, our commercial momentum has been restored. It was a necessary condition for us to achieve a well-prepared entry into the TV and fixed broadband market place in the forthcoming months. We are now ready to take full advantage of the upcoming cable growth opportunity, provided that the regulatory framework would evolve positively.’
Ludovic Pech, Mobistar’s Chief Financial Officer, added: ‘Mobistar delivered well-balanced and solid financial results in the first half of 2015. We have shown our ability to continue generating sufficient leeway through our transformation initiatives to reinvest in customer growth and satisfaction while meeting our 2015 goals. We have refinanced our debt and started reducing our leverage, consistent with our on-going disciplined approach to maintain a strong and flexible balance sheet and create value for all our stakeholders.’