LIME Jamaica delivers on mobile growth
Published:Friday | May 24, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC), the parent company of LIME Jamaica, earned US$20 million from its local subsidiary at yearend March 2013, which was about one-third less in operating profit, or EBIDTA, earned from Jamaican transactions a year ago.
The decline occurred during a period of revenue and subscriber growth for LIME Jamaica. But it also occurred during a time when the local currency was losing value against hard currencies.
"Subscriber numbers were broadly flat on the prior period with growth in Jamaica following regulatory changes which enabled us to improve our competitive positioning, stimulating subscriber and usage growth offset by churn in the Eastern Caribbean," said the CWC annual report released Wednesday.
LIME Jamaica did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The Jamaican operation recorded mobile revenue growth of 9.0 per cent with a 16 per cent growth in subscribers, according to the financials.
The decline in Jamaican dollar transactions was consistent with the overall decline in CWC group EBIDTA, which was down nearly 30 per cent to US$589 million from US$901 million. When adjusted for exceptional items relating to disposal gains in the previous year, EBITDA remains flat.
Group revenue amounted to US$2.9 billion.
CWC operates ventures in the Caribbean, Panama and Monaco. During the review period, it divested operations in Macau in its latest round of restructuring. Plans to divest its Monaco operations await govern-ment approval.
Caribbean EBIDTA declined 4.0 per cent year-on-year to US$274 million. CWC wants to raise EBIDTA to above one-third of Caribbean revenues at US$1.1 billion; it currently stands at roughly one-quarter for the review period.
Mobile active subscribers for the region stand at 1.5 million, with 42,100 broadband users and 701,000 fixed-line users. The figures are not dissagregated by territory.