Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Co (GT&T), reported a net income of US$23.898M for the nine months ending September 30, compared with US$19.23M for the same period last year, a 24% increase.
For the nine months, operating revenues increased by 11% to reach US$56.9M, compared with US$51.5M for the nine months ending September 30, 2002.
This growth in telephone operating revenues was principally attributable to a 24% or US$4.7M in-crease in local exchange service revenues and primarily reflects the growth in GT&T's cellular and wireline subscriber base, a release from GT&T's parent company, ATN said.
Cornelius B. Prior Jr., Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of ATN said the results show the continued strength of the company.
"Although growth in revenues slowed at our GT&T subsidiary, we continued to add both wireless and wireline subscribers and to cut costs in our international operations," Prior said.
The total telephone operating expenses at GT&T for the nine months increased by 2% to US$33M, compared with US$32.3M for the corresponding period of 2002. Higher telephone operating expenses and general administrative expenses stemming from the overall growth of GT&T's business and subscriber base, were offset by a 27% decline in international long distance expenses.
GT&T increased the total number of its cellular subscribers by over 40,000 to 107,807 in the nine months, compared to 67,931 for the same period last year This, the release said, represents a 59% increase in cellular subscribers for the company.
There was also an increase of over 5000 minutes in incoming international calls. Incoming international calls totaled 87,786 minutes compared with 72,550 minutes in the same period last year. Outgoing international calls increased by over 4000 minutes to 18,781 for the nine months, compared with 14,103 minutes for the same period in 2002. The total international calls - both out going and incoming- totaled 106,567 minutes compared with 86,653 minutes in 2002.