Spain’s ONO struggles
Iñaki Ferreras
19-11-2009

Spain's main cable operator Ono's EBITDA improved 3.5% helped by a lowering of the company's in the first nine months this year.

Despite struggling to maintain subscribers because of Spain's economic crisis the operator said its EBITDA was €541 million in that period thanks to tight control over expenses and to lower capital expenditure.

ONO reduced its operative expenses 13% (€340m) helped by reducing its staff headcount in January. Also capital expenditure fell 49.1% to just €150 million. Network deployment spending was cut back in order to conserve cash to handle the current downturn.

Helped by these actions, its net benefit grew €41m compared to €17m in the same period last year. However the operator's sales fell 5.1% (€1.140bn) between January and September this year, a period where its subscriber base went down in 51.000 clients or 2.7% less comparing with the same period last year.

Ono offers integrated traditional telephony, broadband and pay-TV services. The company is owned by a group of investors including Banco de Santander with a 4.4% stake, and several venture capital foreign funds.