OREANDA-NEWS. On August 07, 2009 Southern Telecommunications Company (“UTK”) [(RTS: KUBN, KUBNP; МICEX: UTEL, UTELP; ADR OTC: STJSY, KUE FRA)], the principal fixed-line telecommunications provider for Russia’s Southern Federal District announced its unaudited operating and financial results for the first half of 2009 compiled under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS), reported the press-centre of Southern Telecommunications Company.

UTK’s H1 2009 revenue made RUR 10,751.1 million, representing a 4.9%- increase over H1 2008. Operating expenses grew only by 1.8% to RUR 8,035.5 million. 

Revenues from local telephone services grew by 1.2% to RUR 4,739.8 million due to increase in local tariffs from 1 March 2009, and accounted for 45.8% of the Company’s telecom revenues.

Revenues from intra-zonal telephone services went down 5.7% to 1,725.3 million roubles due to decrease in demand for fixed-to-fixed and fixed-to-mobile connections and accounted for 16.7% of the Company’s telecom revenues.

Active enhancement of Internet broadband access subscriber base enabled UTK to increase H1 2009 revenues from data transfer and Internet access services by 34.7% to RUR 2,632.8 million. Based on H1 2009 results, share of revenues from these services in total telecom revenue increased by 5.6 percentage points to 25.4%.

Revenues from interconnection and traffic transit services decreased 12.5% to 988.9 million roubles accounting for 9.5% of the Company’s telecom revenues. The reduction was due to structural changes in traffic and due to the fact that from March 1, 2008 the service of connection point maintenance had been excluded from the structure of interconnection services.

 H1 2009 expenses for wages and salaries decreased 7.2% over a year-ago to RUR 2,241.0 million and accounted for 27.9% of the Company’s operating expenses.

Depreciation charges grew 14.7% to RUR 1,995.1 million accounting for 24.8% of the Company’s operating expenses.

Material expenses went down 9.9% to RUR 768.7 million and accounted for 9.6% of the Company’s operating expenses.

Amount of payments to national telecom operators (including to Rostelecom) rose 7.9% to RUR 929.6 million and accounted for 11.6% of the Company’s operating expenses.

 In spite of the effect of global financial and economic crisis and H1 2009 extra expenses of 1,391.4 million roubles caused by foreign exchange differences, the Company managed to show a positive financial result of 517.8 million roubles.

EBITDA has changed very slightly making 3,869.0 million roubles. EBITDA margin was down 1.8 percentage points to 36.0%.

The Company continued to optimize the headcount aiming to raise its business efficiency. As a result, in H1 2009 the Company managed to slash the average number of employees by 5.2% over a year-ago to 25,214 people and to bring the number of lines per employee to 159.4 representing a 3.9%-increase.

Under conditions of the financial crisis the Company reduced its capex in order to cut down expenses. H1 2009 capex amounted to RUR 241.8 million, decreasing 84.2% over H1 2008.

Digitalization rate of the Company’s local network climbed 3.05% y-o-y and stood at 72.4% as at 1 July 2009.