Nos profit drops 42.7% in 9M 2020, but business recovers

The Portuguese operator profited 79.1 million euros between January and September. It is a drop of 42.7% in relation to the same nine months of 2019, informed the company in a note sent to CMVM. The group highlights the business recovery in the third quarter, with a “significantly lower” impact of the pandemic, in which profits fell 7.8% over the same quarter, to 44.1 million euros, better than analysts’ estimates.

“The third quarter of this year marks the beginning of Nos recovery after a period intensely marked by the pandemic. This recovery was felt in an intense level of attracting more customers and services, as well as a relative improvement in revenues, still in a decline of 1.4%, but far from the drop of 7.8% verified in the previous quarter,” explains the executive president of the company, Miguel Almeida, in a press release.

Between January and September, the company’s consolidated EBTIDA was fixed in 471,2 million euros, a 6,5% drop. Consolidated revenues totalled 1,013.6 million euros, a drop of 7.2%, with an emphasis on the 3.8% drop in telco revenues.

“We grew in all services with a return to more normalized commercial activity after lockdown,” highlights the operator. There were 125 thousand net additions of retail revenue generated units (RGUs) in the third quarter, which “compared with 76 thousand in 3Q19 and 53 thousand in the previous quarter,” points out the company.

“Net adds were positive for all segments, with fixed Pay TV net adds of 9.6 thousand, total mobile net adds of 102 thousand and fixed broadband net adds of 11.7 thousand,” Nos adds.

The business to business (B2B) segment of the company “is posting healthy operational performance,” but is not “immune” to the impact of the pandemic on customers’ businesses. “Sources of revenue pressure in B2B have also been the material decline in roaming revenues in addition to the extension of more flexible payment terms, either in the form of longer payment terms or temporary discounts.”

Operating expenses decrease

In terms of expenses, Nos’ operating costs, excluding depreciation, fell 7.7% to 542.4 million euros.

Investment, in the form of capex, fell 1.9% in the nine-month period, to 269.6 million euros, having recovered 6% in the last quarter’s analysis, a period in which Nos invested 92.2 million euros.

At the end of September, the Portuguese company recorded a total net debt of 1,347.9 million euros, an increase of 1.4% over the same period.