Investor Relations > Selected Press Releases > Year 2009

BRATISLAVA, 10 March 2009

• Continuing growth of revenues to SKK 17.818 billion
• Postpaid customer segment up by 16 percent
• Exponential increase of data consumption by customers and overall usage of non-voice services
• High customer loyalty and record-low churn of postpaid customers throughout the year 2008

“I consider 2008 to be yet another highly successful year for T-Mobile Slovensko. We achieved the overall increase of revenues by almost 4 percent and on the saturated market with more than 100 percent penetration, we managed to enhance the quality of our customer base and its behaviour patterns. We achieved a 16 % increase in the postpaid customer segment, a significant growth of the number of mobile internet users, more than 8 times higher increase of mobile internet data traffic and also the overall usage of non-voice services. At the same time, we have retained high loyalty of our customer base and despite strong pressure from our competition we saw only a very limited churn in the postpaid segment which confirms our focus on excellent customer care,” Milan Vašina, CEO at T-Mobile Slovensko, remarks on the past year’s developments.

Growth in Postpaid Segment
As at 31 December 2008, the total of 2,347 thousand customers used services of T-Mobile Slovensko. From the perspective of customer segmentation, postpaid customers dominate, reaching at the 2008 year end the level of 58 % of the total customer base.

As at 31 December 2008 T-Mobile Slovensko served 1,359 thousand postpaid and 988 thousand prepaid customers.

Using the methodology of 3-month activity of SIM cards, T-Mobile reports a year-over-year increase of active customers by 26 thousand which documents the trend of enhancing the customer base quality.

“The strong double-digit growth of the number of postpaid customers confirms our segmentation-based approach, reflecting specific needs of several customer groups and optimal portfolio setup comprising four types of rateplanes – ´Vo veľkom´, ´Viac´, Relax and Fix. With the view to the business segment, we significantly expanded the array of ´Podnikateľ´rateplane offering by adding the most frequently used services and also developed further special solutions,” Milan Vašina, T-Mobile’s CEO, comments on the successful steps in both segments.

T-Mobile Slovensko has continued to sustain only a very small churn rate of postpaid customers despite significant efforts of the competing mobile operators on the market. Moreover, in the holiday season, T-Mobile achieved outstanding results also in the field of new customer acquisition from the market as well as in migrating a significant number of clients into its customer base with the mobile number portability service.

In the area of voice services, T-Mobile launched early last year a new type of rateplan ´Vo veľkom´ combining most popular mobile services into a single package, which gradually became a ´bestseller´ in the service segment. Also the popular promotion campaign ´Paušál pre blízkeho´, which culminated with the Christmas voucher offering 75 % discount, was a great success.

“Throughout the whole year 2008 we introduced to all customers several historically beneficial promotional offerings culminating in the extraordinarily successful Christmas campaign including sending SMS messages without limitations, outstanding discounts to rateplans for relatives as well as hi-end handsets,” Milan Vašina sums up.

Exponential Growth in Non-voice Service Usage
T-Mobile reported record-high increase of data service usage as well as a positive change of behaviour patters of customers, mainly in the second half of 2008.

Thanks to the Slovak premiere of the long-expected iPhone 3G handset and special rateplans iTariff, mobile internet usage started to rise over time.

T-Mobile continued in its focus on data service and increasing the customer usage of these services by granting significant discounts to hi-end handsets in Q4 2008 while in parallel offering the unique web ‘n’ walk giga. Also owing to this offering, Nokia N95 8GB became the Q4 2008 bestseller, which is historically the first hi-end handset taking up the leading position in the mobile phone sale chart.

Along with data consumption, also the number of active users of data services grew to over 600 thousand users at the 2008 year end.

“The year 2008 was in T-Mobile devoted clearly to expansion of data services which were used by every fourth customer. Also internet in cellphones did very well; with the first handset to score success being iPhone 3G, later followed by Nokia N95 8GB and other models, thanks to which the volume of transmitted data grew more than eight times,” Vašina remarks.

Another data service – T-Mobile mobile internet with broadband internet connection – also reported high usage; the average traffic per customer of this service already stands at 1.4 GB, which again confirms the company’s clear leadership in the T-Mobile International Group as far as traffic volumes are concerned.

The non-voice segment was in the course of the year extended by adding several content and internet services such as SMS passenger ticket for Bratislava city transport as well as other innovations expanding the mobile telephone functionality in users´ everyday lives.

In 2008, the company offered a vast variety of exclusive handsets to customers such as Nokia 6650 designed exclusively for the T-Mobile International Group, series of proprietary new MDA devices (MDA Touch, Compact IV, Vario IV) and exclusive launches of worldwide bestsellers like Sony Ericsson K770i and T700i, LG KC 550 and introduction of Sony Ericsson XPERIA™ X1 in the Slovak premiere.

Financial results for 2008
“In 2008, T-Mobile Slovensko with the almost 4 % growth in total revenues confirmed its outstanding position on the mobile telecommunication market. The increase of this indicator is attributable to the strongly enhanced quality of the customer base, mainly in the postpaid customer segment gradually nearing the level of 60 per cent,” Silvia Némethová, acting CFO at T-Mobile Slovensko, comments on the 2008 financials.

As at 31 December 2008, the total revenues reached SKK 17.818 billion, while in 2007 they totalled at SKK 17.203 billion.

In 2008, T-Mobile Slovensko reported earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of SKK 7.098 billion. The EBITDA increase was the same as the total revenue growth, i.e. close to 4 percent. Such increase was affected predominately by significant customer-related investments throughout the entire year and mainly in Q4 2008.

Over the recent years, T-Mobile Slovensko has seen stable total average revenue per user (ARPU) – this indicator slightly rose in 2008 from SKK 593 to SKK 597. The growth is reported also in the prepaid segment, which goes to show gradual quality enhancement of the entire customer base.

The main drivers behind the revenue growth traditionally were mobile data services with the revenue up by 27 percent, which contributed to the increase of the share of non-voice service in ARPU from 17.4 % in 2007 to 18.2 % in the past year.

“The total ARPU growth came from the strong increase in the postpaid customer segment and a higher number of customers using new forms of non-voice services introduced to the portfolio recently which customers adopted quickly and started using them regularly,” Silvia Némethová remarks.

In the course of 2008, the overall usage of all forms of services rose significantly. Along with the record-high growth in data services, also the service usage in the voice and SMS segment increased owing to the successful Christmas campaign promoting free SMS over weekends for all customers.

“Our customers currently spend 114 minutes per month calling with a year-over-year traffic increase by 13 percent. The average minute price keeps decreasing, which can be seen from a comparison with ARPU – our customers call more and cheaper at the same time,” Silvia Némethová explains.

Operational indicators for 2008:

Operational indicators (12-month activity)	As of 31 December
	2008	2007	% Change
Mobile service customers - total	2,347.2 thousand	2,367.2 thousand	-1%
Postpaid customers	1,358.9 thousand	1,170.6 thousand	16%
Prepaid customers	988.3 thousand	1,196.6 thousand	-17%
Postpaid customers - net additions p.a.	188.3 thousand	206 thousand	-9%

Operational indicators (3-month activity)	As of 31 December
	2008	2007	% Change
Mobile service customers - total	2,215.3 thousand	2,189.5 thousand	1%
Postpaid customers	1,358.9 thousand	1,170.6 thousand	16%
Prepaid customers	856.4 thousand	1,018.9 thousand	-16%
Postpaid customers - net additions p.a.	188.3 thousand	206 thousand	-9%

Financial indicators for 2008:

Financial indicators in SKK	As of 31 December
	2008	2007	% Change
Revenues total	17.818 billion	17.203 billion	4%
EBITDA	7.098 billion	6.850 billion	4%
Monthly ARPU	597	593	1%

Financial indicators in EUR*	As of 31 December
	2008	2007	% Change
Revenues total	591.4 million	571 million	4%
EBITDA	235.6 million	227.4 million	4%
Monthly ARPU	19,82	19,68	1%

* - recalculated using the conversion rate 1 € = SKK 30.126

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