After its share price fell 27% since the start of 2019, Israeli mobile operator Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) saw its share price jump 7% today after swinging to profit in the fourth quarter and reporting unexpectedly good results.
Fourth quarter revenue was $814 million, down 2% from the corresponding quarter by net profit was NIS 19 million compared with a loss of NIS 50 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. 2018 total revenue was NIS 3.259 billion down slightly from NIS 3.250 billion in 2017 and net profit was $56 million, down 51% from 2017.
Partner CEO Isaac Benbenisti said, "The 2018 annual results express Partner's strength in the Israeli telecommunications market. In the complex competitive reality, Partner succeeded in ending the fourth quarter with a profit of NIS 19 million and an annual profit of NIS 56 million. We continue to focus on, among other matters, providing value to the customer, for example through exclusive technologies such as VoLTE and WiFi calling, and investing significant resources on maintaining the customer satisfaction of our existing customer base, in order to preserve our particularly low churn rate."
He added, "Partner TV is the fastest growing TV service in Israel with a subscriber base of 140,000 subscribers as of today, while, in 2018 alone, 79,000 subscribers were added. Partner TV's advanced interface is best adapted to new viewing habits and has set a new standard in the multichannel television market in Israel."
He continued, "Partner's fiber optic infrastructure, Partner Fiber, is growing at the fastest rate in the market. In recent months, we have expanded our deployment in dozens of cities, and today we are already reaching over 350,000 households with Partner's fiber, nearly 20% of all households connected to the internet in Israel."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 27, 2019
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