LONDON-Analysts welcomed 2002 fiscal year results from European operator MmO2 plc even though the company wrote down the value of its third-generation licenses by taking a nearly $9.7 billion exceptional charge on the assets. With total exceptional charges of $15.8 billion for the year ended March 31, including the 3G license write-down, a $3.9 billion charge for past acquisitions and $2.3 billion on its O2 Netherlands sale earlier this year, the operator reported a loss of $16.7 billion.
“In these year-end results, the size of the exceptional charges we have taken has masked the strong underlying performance delivered in our first full year as an independent company,” said David Varney, MmO2 chairman.
U.K. fixed-line operator British Telecommunications plc spun off its mobile subsidiary as MmO2.
The operator did report a 14-percent total revenue growth to nearly $8 million and total customer growth of 11 percent to 19.4 million subscribers. The company reduced its debt load to $900.8 million from more than $1 billion during the period.
Industry watchers said the results were ahead of expectations with improvements in MmO2’s German subsidiary and growth in average revenue per user.
