Kcell Joint Stock Company (“Kcell” or the “Company”) (LSE, KASE: KCEL; AIX: KCEL, KCEL.Y), the leading provider of mobile telecommunications services in Kazakhstan, announces the Q2 2020 results:
- Net sales increased by 0 percent to KZT 38,626 million (37,869).
- EBITDA (excluding non-recurring items) remained stable at KZT 16,202 million (16,088) with EBITDA margin of 9 percent (42.5).
- Operating income, excluding non-recurring items, increased by 9 percent to KZT 8,762 million (8,121).
- Net finance cost down 2 percent to KZT 2,384 million (2,779).
- Net income decreased by 7 percent to KZT 3,202 million (7,939).
- CAPEX-to-sales was 8 percent (5.6).
- Free cash flow was KZT 11,432 million (-3 027).
- During the quarter, the Company’s subscriber base reduced by 129 thousand subscribers to 7 863 thousand users (7,992).
Comments by Kaspars Kukelis, Chairman of Kcell JSC Management Board:
“Faced by an extremely challenging operating environment across all business areas, we focused on mitigating impacts of the pandemic. Our flexible response and proactive efforts to improve profitability and EBITDA through crisis management and cost optimization programs have enabled us to effectively manage the impact of COVID-19 on our profitability.
Our key priority remains the same – to ensure that we continue to provide the leading technology, products and services that help our society and economy to function effectively during this extremely challenging period for our country and for the entire global economy.
In 2019, we launched our new strategy that will ensure that we maintain our leading market position across all Kcell operations and leverage synergies as part of Kazakhtelecom Group. We see strong financial and operational opportunities in further network and infrastructure sharing initiatives.
We will continue to identify synergies across the entire Group whilst we further develop our handset sales business and drive the monetization of data. We are also renewing our focus on areas where there is clear potential for substantial growth, including mobile financial services, big data and the introduction of 5G infrastructure and services.
We will continue to leverage synergies with Kazakhtelecom JSC by using the insight and best practices of our major shareholder, who is the largest telecommunications operator in Kazakhstan. Guided by the principles of Kazakhtelecom, we will continue to comply with the highest standards of international corporate governance and adhere to the best practices across our operations.”