Press releases (Year 2006)
The number of “BITE Latvija” customers grew by 46 percent
May 04, 2006
During the first quarter of 2006, the number of telecommunications company “BITE Latvija” customers reached 81.100 (including 443 customers of other mobile services providers on “BITE Latvija”) and grew by more than 46 percent compared to the end of 2005. Company’s revenue, compared to the last quarter of 2005, grew by over 28 percent and reached 718 thousand LVL*. The EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), due to the investments into the network, sales network building and new services presentation, reached a loss of 1.4 million LVL. Compared to the last quarter of 2005, the losses decreased by 2.4 times.“The speed of BITE growth after half a year of operations proves that customers trust the quality and innovation of our services which are further expanded”, - CEO of “BITE Latvija” Maarten van Engeland says. According to him, BITE’s goal is to ensure quality and scope of services as soon as possible, therefore the first years of operations demand big investments.
During the first quarter of this year BITE expanded its network into 22 towns of Latvia and started operations in Kuldiga, Aizkraukle, Limbaži and Salacgriva. In total, the area covered by BITE network reached 40 percent of the Latvian territory and around 80 percent of the inhabitants. At the end of March BITE opened the 31st sales point in the country: there were 16 BITE sales points in Riga, 5 in Liepaja, 5 in Daugavpils, 2 in Valmiera, others – in Cesis and Ventspils.
The quality of BITE services is also proved by growing number of the mobile service providers who use “BITE Latvija” network for serving their customers. During the first quarter of this year two more service providers - “Teledema Latvia” and “Master Telecom” - have signed the agreements with BITE regarding operations using the company’s network.
“As customer satisfaction is crucial for us, we already introduced a number of novelties in this area”, - M. van Engeland says. BITE expanded self-care services for its customers presenting the possibility to get the most important information about the invoices by calling special short number 1600. The company has also presented the modern electronic self-care system “Mana BITE” (www.manabite.lv), which enables private customers to check their bills, manage accounts or send SMS via Internet.
Providing its services in Latvia since September 15th 2005, BITE offers a new choice of easy to use and modern mobile services for fair prices: the post-paid service “BITE Private”, prepaid card TOXIC and the modern online mobile service “BITE Online”, sold and serviced via Internet. All customers have access to mobile internet services “BITE Plus”. “Bite Latvija” will also launch its 3G services.
The revenues of “Bite Lietuva”, which also belongs to “BITE Group”, reached EUR 38.9 million** in the first quarter of 2006, and, compared with the same period last year, increased by 20.5 percent. EBITDA reached EUR 8.4 million and increased by 58.2 percent accordingly. The number of “Bite Lietuva” customers during the first quarter of this year reached 1.85 million (57.5 thousand from this number were the users of other mobile service providers).
*Excluding revenue from UAB “BITE Lietuva”.
** Excluding revenue from UAB “BITE Latvija”. From the end of 2005 “Bite” is applying the revised accounting policy. The revenue of 1st quarter of 2005 is adjusted accordingly.
