Cellular partner revenues decreased by 2% to NIS 608 million

Cellular partner revenues decreased by 2% to NIS 608 million, compared with NIS 619 million in the corresponding quarter. Stationary revenues (TV and Internet) increased by 5% to NIS 258 million, compared with NIS 245 million last year. Equipment sales totaled NIS 167 million, similar to a corresponding quarter.
EBITDA increased by 12% to NIS 225 million, compared with NIS 201 million in the previous quarter. The improvement can be attributed to the adoption of the accounting standard IFRS16, which contributed to an increase of NIS 39 million.
The company's net debt decreased by NIS 956 million, compared with NIS 965 million in the corresponding quarter. At the beginning of August, credit rating company Maalot S&P left Partner's debt rating on ilA + but updated the outlook to negative.
The company also posted positive cash flow of NIS 13 million, compared with NIS 70 million in the corresponding quarter - a decrease of 81%. The flow was affected by a 49% increase in investments in the second quarter of NIS 174 million, compared with NIS 117 million in the corresponding quarter. Most of the investments were regulated for the company's optical fiber deployment project, which is now accessible to 540,000 households, reflecting about 28% of the country's households.
In the cellular partner segment, there was an increase of 35,000 subscribers, so that the customer base amounted to 2.65 million. This is accelerating the rate of subscription subscription, since in the previous quarter, Partner lost 4,000 subscribers and in the corresponding quarter added 8,000.
Partner remains with 25% market share, the second largest after Cellcom. The abandonment rate was 7.7%, compared with 8% in the third quarter last year - the lowest in 8 years. The average monthly income per subscriber (ARPU) was NIS 59, a decrease of NIS compared to the corresponding quarter.
In the multi-channel television field, Partner continues to grow in subscribers, and in the third quarter attracted 16,000 new customers. This is a slowdown in the rate of joining since in the previous two quarters the TV service joined 19,000 new subscribers in the quarter, and in the same quarter 23,000 subscribers joined. Partner's subscriber base in television is currently 183,000. Also, Partner does not display data on the number of subscribers in the Internet.