Eircom on Monday announced the appointment of two new top executives, while at the same time reporting declining quarterly revenues as mobile growth failed to offset weakness at its fixed-line business.
The Irish incumbent named Huib Costermans, who has spent the past seven years in finance roles at KPN, as its new CFO, effective in August. Eircom’s former finance chief Richard Moat became its CEO in November.
The company also named Erik Slooten as chief information officer, also starting in August. He will join the company from T-Mobile in the Czech Republic
"They both bring significant industry experience and commercial acumen to help us execute on our strategic and operational plans for the business," Moat said in a statement.
Separately, Moat described Eircom’s third quarter r esults as "highly encouraging".
The telco posted a 3.3% decline in revenues in the first nine months of the year to €940 million, but its Q3 performance was better, with revenue down 1.3% to €311 million.
"The business is nearing an inflection point with fixed-line revenues flattening year on year and mobile performance strengthening," Moat said.
Fixed-line revenues fell by 3% in Q3 to €235 million; for the first nine months fixed-line revenues dropped by 4% to €710 million.
The telco recorded fixed-line losses of 22,000 during the quarter, 21,000 of which were retail lines. It grew its overall broadband base by 18,000 to 766,000, but on the retail side its broadband customers fell by 4,000 to 456,000.
Eircom’s mobile business brought in revenues of €87 million, up 5% on the year-ago quarter. However, it lost 5,000 mobile customers during the three months, ending the reporting period with 1.09 million subscribers. The losses were all on the prepaid side though. The firm added 7,000 postpaid handset customers.
"The decrease in the prepaid base in the quarter is a result of reduced promotional activity compared to the seasonal increase in the quarter ended 31 December 2014," Eircom said.
Mobile EBITDA more than doubled to €19 million in Q3, and the firm’s mobile EBITDA margin of 22% was at its highest level for four and a half years.
At group level Eircom posted adjusted EBITDA of €120 million, up 7%.
It posted a Q3 loss of €19 million, compared with a year-ago loss of €43 million.
