Consolidated revenues at full-service operator Turk Telekom increased to TRY5.4 billion (USD1.0 billion) in the third quarter of 2018, up by 19% year-on-year, as the group’s consolidated EBITDA grew 34% y-o-y to TRY2.3 billion, although it posted a quarterly net loss of TRY2.8 billion due to unfavourable foreign exchange (FX) movements. If excluding FX & FX hedging impacts, Q3 net income would have reached TRY1.0 billion, the company added. CAPEX was TRY1.2 billion in July-September 2018, compared to TRY554 million in Q3 2017.
Turk Telekom’s total fixed broadband (retail and wholesale) subscriber base increased by 13% y-o-y to 10.6 million at the end of September 2018, with 288,000 net additions in 3Q18, as fibre broadband subscribers reached 3.4 million, up by 229,000 in three months. Net mobile subscriber additions at cellular division Avea reached 568,000 quarter-on-quarter (compared to net additions of 414,000 in 3Q17) as the total mobile base increased to 20.8 million and the percentage of 4G LTE users in the base increased to 44% at 30 September 2018, from 22% a year earlier. LTE take-up was boosted by LTE network population coverage expanding to 89% in Q3 2018 from 80% a year ago, and average monthly data usage per LTE user was lifted to 6.5GB with an accelerated growth rate of 38% y-o-y.