MOSCOW, November 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
MTS PJSC ("MTS" - NYSE: MBT; MOEX: MTSS), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS, today announces its unaudited IFRS financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2017.
Andrei Dubovskov, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented on the results:
"We are pleased to report another strong set of results for MTS. For the period, Group revenue increased 2.1% year-over-year to RUB 114.6 bln as a sustained improvement in business and consumer sentiment has allowed us to monetize the strong growth in voice and data usage in Russia despite a slight year-over-year decline in subscribers. We saw a positive contribution from our Ukraine subsidiary, where growth is also fueled by increased data adoption. Our strong growth in profitability derives from increased usage of higher-value data products in Russia, including increased international roaming activity, in addition to our efforts to optimize retail operations. For the period, we realized gains from both a small reduction in retail outlets, dating from the beginning of the year, as well as a slight reduction in SIM-card sales.
We have been active in the digital space by expanding into areas, which complement our core offerings. We acquired LiteBox, a dynamic provider of online cash register services, to enhance our payments ecosystem and expand our B2B platform for merchants and other business customers. We also acquired a stake in Sistema Capital Management to enrich our financial service portfolio. We launched a Big-Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) product, introduced a new app MTS Taxi and improved our interactive TV service offering with the goal of providing customers with broader and better services. We also signed a milestone agreement with Ericsson to prepare MTS' network for 5G services over the next few years.
Given our strong 9M performance, we feel we can amend our guidance to reflect our improving market position. For Group Revenue, we are narrowing our outlook from -2/+2% growth to 0/+2% growth. For Adjusted OIBDA, we are confident that we can raise guidance from >4% to >5% in spite of developments in Turkmenistan, which have negatively impacted both Group revenue and Adjusted OIBDA."
The full text of the release could be found at the Company's website http://www.mtsgsm.com/resources/reports/
Contact: Joshua B. Tulgan, Director, Corporate Finance & Investor Relations, Mobile TeleSystems PJSC, Tel: +7-495-223-2025, E-mail: ir@mts.ru
