UPDATE: Rostelecom IFRS net profit rises 15% to 3.9 bln rbl in Jan–Mar

(Adds more data in last five paragraphs)

MOSCOW, May 15 (PRIME) -- The net profit of Russian state-controlled telecom operator Rostelecom increased 15% on the year to 3.864 billion rubles in January–March, as calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the company said on Tuesday in a statement.

Revenue rose 8% to 76.203 billion rubles.

Operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) added 0.1% to 23.194 billion rubles. The OIBDA margin lost 2.6 percentage points to 30.4%.

Rostelecom improved its 2018 revenue guidance. “We act conservatively…we made the next step by raising the outlook for revenue growth to more than 2%. At that we reserve an option to adjust our forecasts in the future,” Financial Director Sergei Anokhin told reporters.

The operator earlier expected its 2018 revenue to rise by up to 2%.

Guidance for the OIBDA margin for 2018 remains unchanged at more than 31.5%, and capital expenditures are seen at 60–65 billion rubles, excluding state programs.

The company’s First Vice President Vladimir Kiriyenko said incomes from digital and content services in the operator’s revenue exceeded 50% in January–March for the first time on record and reached 53%.

Incomes from digital and content services rose 19.5% to 40.1 billion rubles. The highest growth in this segment was shown by incomes from additional and cloud services, which spiked 80% to 7.2 billion rubles.

Incomes from broadband services rose 8.3% to 19.2 billion rubles, and incomes from pay TV grew 18.4% to 8.2 billion rubles.

Incomes from fixed-line services continued to shrink and lost 10.4% to 18.3 billion rubles.

The number of broadband subscribers went up 2% to 12.7 million, and the number of pay TV subscribers rose 5% to 9.9 million. The number of local telephony subscribers contracted 8% to 18.7 million. The number of MVNO subscribers quadrupled to 880,000.

(61.7684 rubles – U.S. $1)

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