Golden Telecom announces a 44% year-on-year increase in revenues compared to 1Q06 and a 15% increase in net income (excluding cost of Stock Appreciation Rights (“SARs”)
08 May 2007
MOSCOW, Russia (May 8, 2007) — Golden Telecom, Inc. (“Golden Telecom” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: “GLDN”), a leading facilities-based provider of integrated telecommunications and Internet services in major population centers throughout Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (“CIS”), today announced its financial and operating results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2007.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Jean-Pierre Vandromme, Chief Executive Officer of Golden Telecom, said, “In the first quarter of 2007, our results were in line with the guidance we gave earlier. Revenues increased 44% compared to the first quarter of 2006. For the second year in the row, despite contrary seasonal trends, we increased our revenues by 2% in the first quarter of the year compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year. Major corporate developments include following:
- The Board has approved plans to roll out Fiber to the Building (“FTTB”) networks in the Top-65 Russian cities with a combined population of 65 million. We plan to enable broadband access and the provision of Triple-play services for 65% of the households in these cities. The networks will cover approximately 15.6 million households with 42.3 million people;
- Signing of the Share Purchase Agreement for the acquisition of Corbina Telecom, which will considerably accelerate the deployment of FTTB networks combining the resources and experience of two companies;
- Acquisition of licenses and frequencies for Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (“DVBT”) broadcasting with capacity of 112 channels over 7 frequencies in Moscow and 96 channels over 6 frequencies in St. Petersburg using the MPEG-4 format;
- Commercial launch of our WiFi network in Moscow, which is the largest commercial metropolitan WiFi network in Europe. As of today, we have approximately 10,000 paying customers;
- Continuous expansion, aimed at increasing presence in largest cities in Russia. Through organic growth and acquisitions we have an established presence in 18 out of the Top-20 cities, with an estimated market share of 15% from 13% reported a year ago.
We continue to execute our strategy with the goal to make Golden Telecom the leading fixed-line communication operator in Russia and the CIS”.
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