GO plc posts €20.4 million interim profit

Announcing GO plc's interim results, chief executive officer Yiannos Michaelides said the telecommunications firm had maintained robust levels of revenues, profitability and cash generation despite adverse market conditions.

"GO has delivered positive and encouraging results and continues to generate healthy cash flows. This is a result of the Group's investment programme which has helped improve the quality of existing services while widening its portfolio," the Group's CEO said.

Michaelides officially started his role as CEO on September 7.

"The local telecom industry is highly competitive as industry players are giving up more and more value. This is negatively impacting average revenue per user (ARPU) levels," he said.

On the company's fixed line voice market share, the CEO said: "GO currently has 73% of the fixed market share registering 180,018 users till end June this year when compared to 181,830 registered till end December last year".

Michaelides said that GO had registered an "increase" on superfast internet broadband, with 96,899 users registered till end June this year, compared to 95,720 registered till end December 2011.

"tThrough free upgrade offers, Go has helped customers improve their internet broadband speed drastically. GO is constantly providing incentives like mobile phone give-aways to help incentivise its customers to change to internet telephony."

Deepak Padmanabhan, GO's Chairman, said: "We are very happy with this year's results as the group returned to profit. "We were also proud to announce the launch of our 3G network together with the introduction of a very fast broadband infrastructure."

On Forthnet suffering from lower revenues, the Group's chairman said: "Naturally, our investment in Forthnet, through Forgendo, in Greece remains on our agenda. As previously stated, the bulk of the Greek investment write-downs have now been taken into account."

Looking forward, Padmanabhan believes that the group's priority is to evaluate what is in the group's shareholders' best interest with regards to the business while also emphasising that "we shall maintain a clear line of communication with all our stakeholders on this issue."

Shareholders in GO plc had presented six resolutions to challenge the Dubai-owned telecoms provider to give explanations on company losses in Greek subsidiary Forthnet, and the controversial property valuations carried out in respect of land in Qawra and the 11 properties consisting of the telephone exchanges.

GO 
currently controls 50% of the share capital of its jointly-controlled entity, Forgendo Limited, whose activity is that of holding investments in its associated undertaking, Hellenic Company for Telecommunications and Telematic Applications S.A. (Forthnet), a Greek company listed on the Athens Stock Exchange.