Revenue hangup at TP

Telekomunikacja Polska's revenues from sales fell by 2.7 percent year-on-year to zł.4.44 billion in the first three months of this year. The drop was mainly seen in fixed-line telephone services, where revenues fell by almost nine percent to zł.2.47 billion.

The company blamed the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE) for its losses. "[In Q1] there were a number of changes in the market environment, related mainly to the effects of regulatory decisions, which altogether contributed to the decrease in revenues," TP's statement read.

The regulator made a number of decisions against TP last year, one of them being the demand to separate its telephone service from its internet services. This hit TP hard - the number of internet subscribers grew by just 57,000 in Q1, when previously the quarterly growth was between 100,000 and 150,000. Currently there are 1.76 million subscribers to TP's Neostrada internet service. Nevertheless, the company's president, Maciej Witucki, maintained that the number of internet clients should grow to 2.2 million by the end of the year.

The result could have been worse, had it not been for TP's mobile phone arm, Centertel (the operator of Orange). Centertel achieved revenue growth of 7.4 percent year-on-year, reaching zł.1.86 billion. The number of the operator's clients grew to 12.78 million. By the end of the year, the number is expected to grow to 13.5 million.

Witucki said he is not worried about the company's situation. "The drop was included in the budget," he said, adding that the company will not correct its annual prognosis, which expected a one-percent year-on-year fall in revenues. "The full answer as to how we will fight the falling sales will be given in July, when we will publish the strategy for 2007-2010," Witucki concluded.