1 million ADSL ports installed to answer growing market demand

The main shareholder of Romtelecom, OTE, announced today the IFRS financial results of the company for Q3 of 2008.

In Q3 2008, Romtelecom’s operating revenues increased by 2.1% compared to the same period of 2007. The company managed to keep relatively stable the fixed telephony customers base and to keep growing in the new services segments (broadband, business data & TV), thus compensating the decline in the traditional telephony services.

Revenues from data services (ADSL, VPN and other broadband services) kept strengthening during the Q3 2008 (+53%), compared to the same period of last year. At the end of September 2008, solid growth was proven for both ADSL lines, which reached 567,000 (+135% compared to one year before) and for DTH customers, amounting to 559,000 (+92% compared to one year before), due to the attractive prices, high quality services and innovative marketing.

“We are satisfied with the growth rates recorded in Q3 2008 for the customers’ base of both broadband Internet and digital television.

We prepared ourselves to answer the growing market demand for broadband products and we are happy to announce that we reached the milestone of having over one million ADSL ports installed, following the efforts made this year”, stated Yorgos Ioannidis, CEO Romtelecom.

The voice services of Romtelecom also recorded a significant increase in usage, especially for long distance (national) traffic, namely a 27% increase in Q3 2008 compared to same period in 2007. This increase shows our customers’ loyalty, strengthening due to competitive offers (including unlimited minutes for calls in Romtelecom network and other fixed telephony networks), as well as the over 40% decrease of tariffs for national calls in August 2008.

Also, due to its continuous efforts to keep churn under control, Romtelecom recorded only a slight loss in fixed lines since the end of September 2007, of approx 1.6% in one year, compared to a 17% decrease in the previous year (2006 to 2007), managing to maintain the fixed lines close to 3 million.