Vodafone's profit drops in Czechia by 14% to Kc1.25bn in yr to March 2021

Mobile operator Vodafone saw profit fall by 14 percent yr / yr to Kc1.25bn in the fiscal year ending in March 2021 and the entire profit went to the parent Vodafone Group, according to its annual report.

The parent company received another Kc485m in dividends from retained profits from previous years, the total sum at almost CZK 1.74 billion.

The number of mobile clients decreased by 48,000 to 3.94 million while the number of fixed broadband connections rose by 29,000 to 589,000. The share of mobile tariff clients rose by 2.7 percentage points annually to 74.8 percent.

"Last year was marked by an over 70 percent growth in data traffic and a 70 percent drop in roaming revenue," says company spokesman Ondrej Lustinec.

"We made infrastructure investments, expanding the 5G coverage which now reaches 35 percent of the population and is obviously the largest 5G network in Czechia," he said.

Vodafone has invested Kc24bn in infrastructure over the past five years in total, he added.

Vodafone is the first domestic operator to switch off the 3G network at the end of March. About 1 percent of customers used the network. The frequencies will be used for the 5G network and increasing of the LTE capacity. The 700 MHz and 3,500 MHz frequency bands from a recent auction will also be used for 5G.

Two years ago, Vodafone bought the largest Czech cable provider UPC. The cable network is available to about 1.5 million households.

Source: CTK