| Hutchison boosts revenues 45 percent in 2005 |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 07 March 2006 | |
  
Its 3G customer base stood at 806,000 as at 6 March 2006, including almost 100,000 customers who had upgraded from its CDMA network to its 3G network which, the company announced last month, is being phased out. The CDMA network accounted for $275 million, $1 million more than last year. At 36 percent of total Hutchison will need a successful migration campaign to avoid CDMA customers defecting to other 3G networks from impacting its 2006 results. At 31 December it had 381,000 CDMA customers and 654,000 3G customers. The company's net loss after tax for the year was $547 million, down from $690 million last year. Customer acquisition costs for the year were $377 per customer, down from $427 the previous year. In the 3G business, non-voice ARPU grew from $13 per customer per month in 2004 to $19 in 2005, representing 24 percent of the total ARPU from 3G customers. Non-voice services, including content from the company's portal Planet 3 and high-speed data access, but excluding SMS, contributed an $8 per month in 2005. Hutchison said the key to customer usage of content services had been the packaging, promotion and pricing of services such as mobile TV. It claimed that over 500,000 customers were taking monthly subscriptions to services such as News in December. Capital expenditure for the year was $207 million, including contributions to the 3G network joint venture with Telstra. This was $100 million less than the previous year. The company had over 2,200 cell sites in service at the end of 2005. |
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