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The company, which is the parent firm of Digifone in Ireland, said in a pre-close update statement that it believes its EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) for the year ended 31 March 2002 will be higher than the consensus estimate of STG410 million. Estimates currently fall within the range of STG360 million to STG437 million.
Looking ahead, mmO2 said its EBITDA estimate for the financial year ending on 31 March 2003 remained unchanged at STG800 million. The company will announce its full-year results on 29 May 2002.
The company also said it expects capital expenditure for the full year to be slightly below current market consensus of STG1.3 billion; this means its group net debt at the year-end should also come in below the market's expectation of around STG1 billion. When mmO2 first spun off in November 2001 from its former parent company, BT, it took with it around STG500 million in net debt.
Following the positive news from mmO2, its shares were trading up more than 6.5 percent to STG0.73 in early trading in London.
MmO2 is currently gearing up for a rebranding campaign that will unite the disparate brands of its wholly owned subsidiaries across Europe, including Digifone in Ireland, BT Cellnet in the UK, Viag Interkom in Germany and Telfort Mobiel in the Netherlands.
The company has already begun some rebranding activity in the UK, and more pre-launch advertising will appear in late April, with the biggest push beginning May.
MmO2 also confirmed on Friday that it expects to apply for a 3G licence in Ireland, where the licence competition was announced in December. A bid is also expected from Vodafone, although the ESB is believed to have dropped its plans to apply for a licence.
Also on Friday mmO2 released figures for the takeup of the RIM Blackberry, a handheld device aimed at letting users check their e-mail while on the move. The company said it has now signed up more than 250 corporate customers for the device since its introduction in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland.
A spokesperson said the vast majority of these customers were in the UK, where the device was launched last autumn; the commercial launch in the other territories took place last month.
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