Israeli telecom company Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL) has reportedly slightly lower revenue and profit for the third quarter of 2017
Revenue was NIS 975 million ($276 million), down 1.7% from NIS 992 million ($281 million) in the third quarter of 2016. Net profit was NIS 32 million ($9 million) down 3% from NIS 33 million ($9 million) in the third quarter last year.
Cellcom CEO Nir Sztern said, "The influence of the competition is reflected in the cellular segment results; however, our varied activities as a telecommunications group in the fixed-line segment are bearing fruit and partially compensated for the cellular segment results. In this quarter, the company reported an increase of 8% in EBITDA to NIS 226 million, and an increase of 13.7% in operating profit, compared to the third quarter of last year.
He added, "Cellcom tv operations shifted to profitability and to a positive contribution to the company's results in the third quarter of 2017. This is a quarter with a record recruitment to Cellcom tv with 17,000 households who joined Israel's revolutionary TV service. "
On the move to fiber optics he said, "We are vigorously evaluating various alternatives of independent deployment of an optic-fiber infrastructure, which will revolutionize the internet infrastructures in Israel, whether through self-deployment of fibers in residential neighborhoods, a joint-deployment of fibers in residential neighborhoods together with Partner, and/or an investment by the Company in the IBC fiber Initiative, in order to accelerate the deployment pace of an additional fiber infrastructure in Israel, and reduce the investments required for that purpose."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 22, 2017
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