Türk Telekom’s profit rises 15 percent

ISTANBUL

Net income of Türk Telekom has increased by 15 percent in the first quarter from a year ago to 645 million Turkish Liras.

Revenues of the telecom giant leaped 61 percent in January-March compared with the same period of last year to stand at 15.25 billion liras.

In the first quarter, the company’s investments totaled 3.3 billion liras of which 42 million liras was quake related expenditures.

First quarter performance was largely affected by the massive quakes that shook southeast Türkiye in February, the company said in a statement.

“The regular course of our operations was mostly absent in February and started to gradually normalize in March. In this backdrop, we managed to stay in our guidance with an actually somewhat better than expected start in revenue growth,” commented Ümit Önal, Türk Telekom CEO.

Pressured by a continued opex increase and one-off quake costs, the consolidated EBITDA grew moderately by 16.2 percent year-on-year to 4.8 billion liras along with an EBITDA margin of 31.3 percent, said the company.

Fixed broadband base remained flat from the previous quarter at 14.8 million, while fiber subscribers rose to 11.8 million with 293,000 quarterly net additions.

Mobile portfolio slightly grew to 25.6 million by adding a net 112,000 subscribers in the first quarter, the company said.

“Total number of subscribers declined to 52.5 million with a net loss of 254,000 during the quarter, largely due to the impact of the quakes on net addition performance across all segments but also to the ongoing contraction in the fixed voice customer base,” the company added.