Revenues down but subscribers up for Millicom, the Swedish Stenbeck family controlled cellular phone holding company, in South East Asia first half 2004.
“Revenues in Vietnam were impacted by the tariff reduction introduced on May 1 and by changes in interconnect terms,” explains Millicom CEO Marc Beuls. “We noticed, however, increases of 11 and 8 percent in minutes of use respectively for the prepaid and postpaid market in June from the previous month and expect that revenues will again be at the April level in July.”
In South East Asia Millicom run cellular networks in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
In this region the company recorded a 59 percent increase in cellular subscribers to 1,939,790 for the first half 2004 compared with the same period last year.
Second quarter revenues in the region 2004 dropped to USD 51.8 million compared with USD 55.7 million in the first six months 2003. These changes are attributed to the tariff cuts and interconnect changes in Vietnam.
Worldwide Millicom reported 6,372,367 subscribers by 30 June 2004. That is 43 percent more than they had by the same date last year. Overall profits grew by 47 percent to USD 107 million.
