No Dolce Vita for VimpelCom

Multinational telco VimpelCom reported a 5% organic year-on-year decline in service revenue in the second quarter to 4.9 billion US dollars, despite a 5.2 million increase in mobile customers to almost 221 million. In both  Russia and Ukraine, service revenue fell 4% year-on-year, while the Italian unit, Wind, saw a 10% decline. VimpelCom reiterated its targets of a low-to-mid single digit decline in revenue for 2014, while committing 21% of revenues on capex.

CEO Jo Lunder said: “As previously indicated, we expect 2014 to be a challenging year for our group. The results for the second quarter were impacted by a weaker operational performance in some markets, but also by the macro-economic situation in Russia and Ukraine. In Italy we continue to outperform competitors in a weak market. We are seeing improved financial performance in Kazakhstan and Bangladesh, with year-on-year service revenue growing by 8% in both markets. The improvements are due both to the investments we are making in our networks and to our focus on delivering the best customer experience."

source: VimpelCom presentation