CK Hutchison reported annual revenues at 3 Group down 1 percent to HKD 62.415 billion, as modest customer growth and the new joint venture in Italy were offset by negative currency effects, lower handset revenues, the roaming regulation and tough competition. Excluding currency effects, revenues rose 5 percent in 2016, helped by two months of the Wind Tre venture in Italy included and marking an improvement from 1 percent organic growth in the first half of the year.
The merger helped the active customer base increase 76 percent over the year to 45.97 million. ARPU was down 10 percent to EUR 16.34, hurt by the reductions in EU roaming rates and "keen competition in all markets", the group said. Total data usage increased 51 percent to 1,432 petabytes in 2016, and 3 customers used an average 51 GB each last year, up from 38.1 in 2015.
3 Group's EBITDA increased 9 percent to HKD 18.944 billion, and EBIT rose 10 percent to HKD 12.838 billion, helped by a 9 percent fall in customer acquisition costs and synergies from the mergers in Ireland and Austria. Hutchison attributed the growth to the inclusion of Wind Tre as well as underlying operational growth in all its other countries.
