February 18, 2005
Cantv posts US$160mn net income

(BNamericas.com) - "Venezuela's Cantv posted net income of 306.7bn bolívares (US$160mn) in 2004, compared to 29.8bn bolívares recorded in 2003, the company said in a statement (...)

Total revenues grew 9.6% year on year, to 4.11tn bolívares, of which 66% came from fixed line telephony, 31% from mobile telephony, 2% from the internet service and 1% from other services including Cantv yellow pages.

For 2005, the company expects revenues to grow 9-12% to 5.32tn-5.52tn bolívares with net income growing 24-34% to 440bn-505bn bolívares (...)

Mobile revenues grew to 1.26tn bolívares from 880bn bolívares in 2003 and internet revenues grew to 106bn bolívares from 90.3bn. (...)

'Cantv is now financially stronger because it has been preparing itself to face competition from Telefonica Moviles, which has acquired the local BellSouth operation. Adding to this preparation, there is the acquisition of Digitel, a process that is still under evaluation by local regulators. Considering the impact in the Venezuelan market this evaluation could take a year, or even a matter of months,' Ramírez added.

Cantv ended the year with 3.06 million fixed line users, up 11.9% year on year, and 362,569 internet subscribers, up 56.3%. Local traffic increased 6.1% compared to 2003, long distance traffic was flat and mobile traffic increased 38.1%. Cantv's mobile unit Movilnet increased its client base 15.9% to 3.1 million, with 425,289 new subscribers joining in 2004. Prepaid plans account for 93% of users (...)".