Macquarie Telecom weathers downturn in voice business

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 27 February 2007 08:24

IT Industry - Deals

Macquarie Telecom has posted healthy gains in its data, mobile and hosting services revenues for the half year, just balancing a downturn in voice revenues.

The company has reported revenues for the half year of $126.1 million, up just 1.2 percent on the previous corresponding period despite lifting mobiles revenue by 32.2 percent and data services revenue by 8.7 percent. Voice, revenue however which accounted for more than half the total was down 5.8 percent.

Mobiles accounted for $12.9 million of revenue, data and hosting $35.3 million and operations in Singapore $5.7 million. Fixed voice at $72.1 million was 57 percent of total, down from 61 percent in 2005.

EBITDA of $4.8 million for the six months ended 31 December 2006 was more than double the $2.0 million reported for the six months to 31 December 2005. The company said that all lines of business had been EBITDA positive during the period. However the bulk of this, $4.4 million, came from fixed voice. The company reported a net loss of $2.4 million compared to $3.1 million in the previous corresponding half year.

By far the biggest cost component of the company's business is its payments to other carriers: these accounted for $86.3 million (68 percent of revenue) in the half year up from $84.9 million in the same period last year. The company ended the half year with cash and cash equivalents of $21.7 million, helped by a net cash inflow of $5.7 million.

Chairman Robert Kaye said: "Macquarie Telecom is delivering on its strategy of migration to higher margin businesses. Our data & hosting business performed strongly during the half and we continue to see the benefits of our investment program flowing through to the bottom line. We look forward to this solid momentum being carried through to the rest of this financial year and beyond."