OREANDA-NEWS. On May 03, 2007 OJSC CenterTelecom (OTC: CRMUY.PK; MICEX: CTLK, CTLKP; RTS: ESMO, ESMOP), major provider of fixed-line telecommunications services in the Central Federal District of Russia, announced its financial results in accordance with Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) for the first quarter 2007, reported the press-centre of  OJSC CenterTelecom.


Characteristics of operational efficiency
The number of telecommunication lines per employee rose by 19,23% to 124 lines (104 lines for 1Q 2006);
Revenue per line rose by 15,73%. from RUR1,004.6 in 1Q 2006 to RUR1,162,6 in1Q 2007;
Revenue per employee reached RUR144,5 thousands, 38,01% more than in 1Q 2006 (RUR104,7 thousands);
Personnel numbers were reduced by 14,32% and reached 53,714 employees (62,694 in 1Q 2006);
Profitability calculated from net profit reached 14,26% (8,18% in 1Q 2006).
The number of ADSL users under the DOMOLINK brand rose by 33,97% in 1Q 2007 and reached 154,137 users (compared with 115,052 as of 31 December 2006). The share of income from Internet access services rose to 7,01% (5,18% in 1Q 2006).
Number of fixed line communication services’ subscribers increased by 1,87% to 6,560,235 subscribers for 1Q 2007 (6,439,913 subscribers in 1Q 2006).
In 1Q 2007 implementation of the “calling party pays” rule provided growth of income from inter-zonal communications by 103,69% and reached RUR1,342,49 million (RUR659,07 million in 1Q 2006).
Higher expenditures connected with interaction with other telecommunication operators in 1Q 2007 by 215,44% in comparison with 1Q 2006 is attributable to implementation of the “calling party pays” rule on 1 July 2006.

Commenting on the 1Q 2007 RAS results Sergey Pridantsev, CEO CenterTelecom, said that generally the company’s management is satisfied with the results of the first quarter of 2007 and considers them a confirmation of stable development and appropriateness of the strategy being implemented by CenterTelecom’s management. He added: “In the first quarter of 2007 the increase of the company’s net profit reached 105,63% in comparison with the same period of 2006. Mostly this is connected with the raising of tariffs for inter-zonal telecommunication services and the development of Internet access services, in particular with growth of number of DOMOLINK subscribers (in March 2007 the number of users of DOMOLINK ADSL service reached over 154 thousand people). Moreover a complex of measures taken by CenterTelecom in order to optimize personnel, to reduce the scale of the investment program and external debts also contributed to these positive results”.