Eircom revenue up 5%

Eircom today announced its third quarter and nine-month results for the financial period ending March 31, 2008.

Group revenue stands at €515m, up approximately 5% on the corresponding quarter last year, with group EBITDA up 11% at €175m.

“Eircom group continues to perform strongly and once again we deliver a solid set of results for this period, both in the mobile and fixed line segments,” said Rex Comb, CEO eircom. “We continue to maintain a strong cash position with a cash balance of €281m at March 31 2008.”

It was announced that 13,000 net new subscribers joined mobile arm Meteor this quarter. This brings the total number of mobile subscribers to 975,000 as of March 31, 2008, up 17% from 832,000 from the same period in 2007.

Meteor has signed a contract with Ericsson to provide a 3G mobile broadband network in Ireland.

Meteor has already achieved 10% 3G network coverage, and is on target to reach 33% coverage by the end of September covering the Dublin and Cork areas.

A net additional 37,000 DSL broadband customers joined eircom this quarter. DSL customers increased 37% year-on-year to 571,000 at March 31, 2008 up from 417,000 at March 31, 2007. Retail DSL subscribers now amounts to 410,000.

Headcount in eircom’s fixed line business has fallen by 476 since July 1, 2007, as part of the company’s drive to improve efficiency.