Snatching clients

Polkomtel, operator of Plus mobile-phone services brand, expects its number of clients to reach 14 million by the end of this year. By comparison, it ended the year 2006 with just over 12 million clients.

With mobile-phone penetration in Poland close to 100 percent, the growth implies that "the majority of the clients will be those who already own a phone [on] another network," the president of Polkomtel Jarosław Bauc said. The firm announced that in the first three months of the year it gained 600,000 new clients, but it didn't disclose how many have left the operator.

Telecom market analyst Mateusz Malicki from PMR Consulting says he is not sure whether it will be possible for Polkomtel to reach its goal. "It is very optimistic," he said. "[One of Polkomtel's main competitors,] PTC said it wants to have 13 million clients by the end of the year and be a market leader."

The company expects its 2007 revenue to be at a similar level as last year, some zł.7.36 billion. Net profit is expected to maintain its growth rate of about five percent annually, meaning it could reach zł.1.17 billion this year.

Polkomtel paid out more than zł.1 billion in dividends from last year's profits. Bauc promised that the company's shareholders could also count on a dividend this year of "no less than 50 percent of the profits," Bauc declared.

This year Polkomtel is to launch an investment offensive on which it plans to spend zł.1.2 billion. It will primarily invest in developing its transmission network and financing its multimedia portal.

The operator will also continue expanding its UMTS (3G) network by a quarter. "By the end of the year, our UMTS service will cover 25 percent of the country's population," Bauc declared.