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Charlot Zahra
Mobile phone operator Vodafone Malta has attributed the reduction of 2,000 subscribers and lower average monthly earnings per user in the first quarter of this year to “seasonality factors”.
Reacting to the article published last week in Business Today, Claudette Farrugia, Vodafone Malta’s Corporate Affairs Executive said in a letter: “It is true that compared to the previous quarter (ending 31 Dec 2006) there was a shortfall of 2,000 subscribers.
“However, this is due to the seasonality factors affecting our business whereby temporary subscriptions mainly attributable to tourists and foreign students visiting Malta during that period are eventually disconnected.
“The performance of a telecommunications operator like Vodafone Malta should be evaluated by comparing a quarter with the corresponding quarter the previous year and also on a year-to-year basis.
“It does not make sense to reach a conclusion simply by comparing a quarter with the previous quarter as your correspondent has done,” said Farrugia.
In fact, in that same article Business Today had quoted a Vodafone spokesperson saying that “on a year-to-year basis, Vodafone Malta’s subscribers grew by 10,700 from 175,500 as at 31 March 2006 to 186,200 as at 31 March 2007”.
Farrugia said that as regards the fall in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) in the first quarter this year, “you can note that the seasonality factor also in the corresponding 2005/2006 quarters”.
She explained that the fall in ARPU from Lm12.6 as at 31 December 2006 to Lm12 as at 31 March 2007 was mainly attributable to “increased traffic and roaming activities by Vodafone Malta’s subscribers during that particular quarter” due to, among other things, Christmas Holidays – hence the difference between the two quarters.
With regards to the fall in total voice traffic over the Vodafone network in the same quarter from 50 million minutes to 48 million minutes, Farrugia said that “the same seasonality factor applies”.
She explained that on a year-to-year basis, total voice traffic grew from 175 million minutes for the financial year ending 31 December 2006 to 202 million minutes for the financial year ending 31 March 2007, an increase of 15.4 per cent.
The figures quoted by Business Today in the original article were taken from the Vodafone Group’s Preliminary Results for year ended 31 March 2007, which were published on the London Stock Exchange on 29 May. |
