OREANDA-NEWS. Southern Telecommunications Company (STC) [(RTS: KUBN, KUBNP; МICEX: UTEL, UTELP; ADR OTS: STJSY, KUE FRA)], the largest fixed-line operator in the Southern Federal District of Russia, today released its audited 2006 RAS financial statement.

Revenue dropped 3,1% y-0-y, amounting to Rub 17.57 bln in 2006.
 
EBITDA [1] reached Rub 6,3  bln in 2006, which is 17,1% higher than in the year-earlier period.  EBITDA margin stood at 35,9%, up 6,2% y-o-y. Revenue from promising telecom services [2] surged 56% in the reporting period, totaling Rub 1,85 bln.  The share of earnings from promising telecom services in the Company’s tariff revenues rose 4,6% y-o-y to 11,2%. STC’s gross revenue stood at Rub 17,6 bln, which is 3,1 less than in 2005, including revenue from telecom services, which decreased to Rub 15,6 bln. In 2006 the share of revenue from local voice rose 4,6% to 11,2%. The main factor driving the Company’s tariff revenues during the reporting period was indexation of local voice tariffs effective September 1, 2005.

Local voice revenue rose 7,92% to Rub 8,4 bln vs. 2005.  The increase in main telephone lines at the urban and rural telephone network was 49,003. As of December 31, 2006 the number of main telephone lines installed on STC’s network stood at 4,064,006 lines.

Based on 2006 results, revenue from promising telecom services rose 56% and amounted to Rub 1.8 bln, including revenue from Internet services, up 58% and construction of corporate virtual private networks (VPN), up 44,4%. In addition, Internet services showed robust growth: traffic transmitted via Internet rose 86,2% in 2006, to 1,133 TB.  The operator’s dial-up customer base rose 32,9% to 328,076 users, while the broadband subscriber base surged 117,9% to 69,364. Interconnect and traffic transmission earnings soared 122,5% and reached Rub 2,6 bln.