PTC says strong revenues will be used to redeem bonds

Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (PTC), the operator of Era and Heyah mobile phone networks, has increased its revenue estimates. Company accountants say they expect the figures to grow by 13% instead of the 10% they predicted at the beginning of the year. The revision follows strong Q2 results which were much better than the company had expected. In Q2 PTC's revenues exceeded zł.1.6 billion, which marks a 15% growth in comparison with the same period last year, and its net profit totalled almost zł.347 million. The net profit for the first six months of 2004 amounted to zł.477 million. Nevertheless, the company does not expect its profit to be significantly higher than in 2003 since it plans to buy out all of its bonds whose value exceeds zł.2.2 billion. By the end of June the number of PTC's customers amounted to 7.5 million including 4.6 million in the pre-paid segment. "Our strategy oriented for pre-paid has brought results. A year ago we had 2.9 million users in the pre-paid system," stated PTC board member responsible for finances, John Eastick. (Puls Biznesu, pp.1,6) E.B.