AAPT revenues and EBITDA decline

Stuart Corner
Saturday, 22 August 2009 12:49

IT Industry - Strategy

AAPT's operating revenues decreased by $130m in FY09 to $955m and by $32m in Q4 FY09 to $226m, according to parent Telecom NZ's financial results released on Friday.

Broadband and Internet revenues were down 3.6 percent to $163m, Resale revenues down 15.7 percent to $268m, data revenues down 1.5 percent to $130m, calling revenues down 17.5 percent to $282m and local service revenues up 9.1 percent to $24m.

Telecom NZ said the major driver of this decline was a 24 percent drop in consumer services when compared to the prior year, partially offset by consumer price realignment. Calling revenue decreased by $62m to $282mn FY09 ($15m decline in Q4 FY09 to $64m) "due to the impact of lower consumer services." This also impacted resale revenue, which declined by $50m year-to-date and by $14 million in Q4 FY09.

Labour costs decreased in FY09 by $16m ($7m decline in Q4 FY09) because of a 10 percent reduction in headcount. The company had 1226 full time equivalent employees at 30 June 2009.

AAPT managed to reduce other operating expenses by 15 percent to $146m. It said this reduction had been "driven by savings in outsourcing through the transition to an offshore call centre in Manila and no longer incurring Hyperbaric [its integrated customer management and billing system] launch related costs. Further cost reductions were also achieved due to reduced restructuring costs, significant data storage cost reductions, IT support contract renegotiation and bringing network maintenance in-house."

Telecom NZ added that: "Increased marketing in the consumer and business segments has partially offset these reductions."

Telecom NZ CEO, Paul Reynolds, noted that EBITDA in Q4 was up 10 percent on Q4 FY08 and said this was the result of a focus on on-net sales, the offshoring of the consumer call centre, control of operating costs and realigned marketing efforts on more profitable offers such as unlimited broadband for consumers and mid-band ethernet for business customers.

He added that the focus in the current financial year would be on reducing consumer churn and back office simplification programme that would reduce the number of billing systems.

In the first half of FY09 Telecom NZ took a $NZ68m hit by writing down to zero the goodwill relating to Powertel, acquired by AAPT in May 2007 for $NZ347m. It said that its carrying value was "no longer supported by forecast earnings."