Turkcell’s annual revenues, net profits leap 23.4%, 32.6%

Turkish operator Turkcell has posted a 32.6% jump in annual net profit to TRY1.979 billion (USD524 million) on consolidated revenues which climbed by 23.4% to TRY17.632 billion in January-December 2017. EBITDA rose by 34.8% to TRY6.228 billion, boosting the EBITDA margin from 32.3% to 35.3%. The group noted that if excluding a one-off tax settlement, net profit would have risen 52.3% to TRY2.479 billion. Turkcell Turkey revenues grew by 20.8% to TRY15.450 billion in the year (87.6% of the group total), with the remaining contributions coming from Ukraine, Belarus, Northern Cyrpus and Germany.

Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioglu commented that ‘digital transformation’ was the key driver behind the group’s revenue growth in 2017, including the expansion of its digital services brand (Lifecell) and the continued investment in its Turkish 4G network. Turkcell had 34.4 million Turkish mobile subscribers (excluding M2M) at the end of December 2017, up from 33.2 million twelve months earlier, with 56% of subscribers using at least one of its digital services, such as BiP (messaging, IP calling/video calling etc.), fizy (Turkey’s most popular music app), TV+, digital publishing app Dergilik, financial apps and others. Since September 2017 Turkcell has offered Lifecell mobile packages purely based on mobile internet/digital platform services including calling and messaging, attracting 242,000 subscribers to the tariffs by the end of the year. Data and digital services revenues reached 67% of Turkcell Turkey revenues in FY17, growing by 51.2% to TRY10.304 billion.