Salt had slightly less sales in the first nine months of the year and also earned slightly less operationally. Nevertheless, one is satisfied with the Telco. Because the third quarter was the best for Salt in six years.

Telko Salt implemented a little less and earned less operationally in the first nine months. The corona crisis had an impact on the result because roaming income shrank due to travel restrictions. Salt also sold significantly fewer cell phones and other devices, as most stores were closed during the lockdown. In the first nine months of the year, sales fell by 1.9 percent to CHF 730.7 million, as Salt announced.

Operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell by 3.0 percent to 371.4 million francs. Cell phone antenna masts, which Salt sold to the Spanish Cellnex for 700 million euros last year, played a role in this. Since then Salt has had to pay rent for the use of the masts, which depressed the operating profit. Without this rent, operating profit would have increased very slightly, explained Salt.

The bottom line is that the Salt parent company Matterhorn Telecom achieved a net profit of 46.8 million francs. In the previous year, the cell phone mast sales shot up net profit to CHF 470.3 million.

Won many customers

Corona hit the result. But “basically we are very satisfied with the development,” said Salt boss Pascal Grieder in an interview with the news agency AWP. In the third quarter, Salt gained 21,800 new mobile phone subscription customers. That is about three times as many as in the first quarter (7,000) and in the second quarter (7,600).

From July to September, Salt had its best quarter in six years, said Grieder. At the end of September the third largest mobile operator had 1.287 million mobile phone subscribers. In the prepaid business, however, the decline continued. Salt still has 534,000 prepaid users after 558,000 at the end of December.

Partner search for fiber optic expansion

In addition, the growth on the fiber optic network continued. The TV, Internet and landline telephony offer Salt Home had already cracked the 100,000 customer mark in the first half of the year and exceeded the breakeven point for EBITDA. Salt did not provide any more recent information. Salt wants to stick to the fiber optic expansion despite the collapse of the cooperation with Sunrise. Now they are looking for financial investors to expand the ultra-fast data network, it said.

Business customers also continued to improve. They have won net customers for the fifth quarter in a row. “We are of course pleased,” said Grieder. The Salt boss is hoping for corona vaccinations in the future. Then travel should also increase again and roaming income will rise. In addition, Salt wants to sell more cell phones again after the launch of the new 5G-capable iPhones. 5G will be available to Salt customers at no extra charge until next March, it said.

Salt had only activated the new cellular technology in August. The coverage is even smaller than at Sunrise and Swisscom, said Grieder, without giving exact numbers. Sunrise has the edge here. According to current information, the second largest telecommunications provider offers the fast version of 5G in 686 localities, while Swisscom covers 455 localities.

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