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EXATEL summed up its financial results for the first three quarters of 2020.
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The company achieved a positive net result 16 months ahead of schedule. The EBITDA and direct cost margin were also better than expected.
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EXATEL’s management board presented development plans for further years and announced the construction of a satellite teleport with mission-control option.
During today’s press conference, EXATEL’s Management Board presented the company’s financial results for the first three quarters of 2020. The Polish telecommunications operator recorded a positive net result already in August this year. The long-term upward trend continued in September and EXATEL reported a result of PLN 0.4 million for the first 9 months.
“Achieving profitability is the most important objective of a strategy we implemented back in 2017. We assumed to reach this goal in 2021, but the plan was met 16 months ahead of the scheduled deadline. We are now facing another challenge – maintaining this trend in times of pandemic and the increasingly more visible economic slowdown – both in domestics and international markets” – said Nikodem Bończa Tomaszewski, President of the Board at EXATEL.
EBITDA and direct cost margin exceeded plans
The EBITDA index also recorded results better than expected. The company closed the first three quarters with PLN 49.4 million. This value is better than planned by 8% and by over PLN 3.8 million more than the first nine months of 2019. The case with direct cost margin is similar. This value reached PLN 142.3 million (better than 1.7% relative to the plan and 8.9% year-on-year) in September.
The growing financial efficiency of EXATEL is the outcome of the strategy of withdrawing from high-risk contacts, particularly visible in Voice Wholesale. This translates to lower sales revenues, which amounted to PLN 264.5 million for the first nine months of 2020. On the other hand, cash funds in EXATEL bank accounts increased to PLN 60.1 million, with the lack of long-term financial liabilities at the same time.
“For the last 3 years, EXATEL has put enormous effort in entering the uptrend. Firstly, Exatel – we built 2188 km of the new fibre-optic network. We also focused on the diversification of our activities, supplementing our basic portfolio with cybersecurity, IT and satellite communication services. Add to it the increase in the financial efficiency of our organization, the continuous development of our position on international markets (in terms of voice wholesale and data transit) and our implementing proprietary research and development projects – the year-on-year EBITDA increase at an average level of 20% for 2017-2019 should not be a surprise to anyone” – added Nikodem Bończa Tomaszewski.
TAMA already protecting over 80 clients
R&D projects are already an inseparable element of EXATEL’s activities. The first, completed at the end of 2019, was TAMA – a proprietary operator-class anti-DDoS. This 18-month project was made real with the support of the National Centre for Research and Development and has been launched within the EXATEL network. After 9 months after its commissioning, it already protects over 80 of our clients.
“Technology developers are the entities most reckoned with on the market today. Therefore, we made the decision to join this group of enterprises in 2017. Twenty-seven months later, we know that “we hit the bull’s-eye”. Today, our TAMA anti-DDoS is operating as a fully functional cybersecurity solution. It is so effective that we have been continuously developing it (indeed, in just the last six months, we have enhanced it with 17 new functionalities) and it brings us tangible benefits. We are talking about savings that can amount to as much as PLN 5 million over the next five years” – said Rafał Magryś, Vice-President of the Board at EXATEL.
EXATEL focuses on development…
Poland’s foremost telecommunications operator does not intend to slow down. It plans to base its development in the coming years on network automation as built upon SDN Software-Defined Networking). This is a solution that the EXATEL R&D team is currently working in, as part of the SDNbox and SDNcore projects.
“Innovation is just one of the elements of our development strategy. The commercial market, the international one in particular, still remains the foundation. This is why we have been focusing on reinforcing our position on the Eurasian market, among others, through expanding the Frankfurt – Moscow route and investing in IP transit. Such projects will require large financial outlays. Therefore, we plan their implementation based on external funding” – stressed Nikodem Bończa Tomaszewski.
… and announces the construction of a satellite teleport
Satellite communication is the most recent service, offered since 2018, in the portfolio of EXATEL. However, its importance for company’s growth is enormous. This is why at the beginning of 2020, Vice-President Rafał Magryś announced the development strategy for this segment of company services. Its objective is to construct and launch a Polish satellite into space.
“EXATEL has been providing satellite communication services for two years. That is why we decided to take the next step in accordance with the stages we had planned. Indeed, we are just about to start implementing the first one. I mean the construction of a satellite teleport with mission-control options. This will enable us to not only transmit and receive satellite signals, but also to control a satellite platform already launched into space” – added Rafał Magryś.
The Polish satellite teleport by EXATEL will be the only such solution in Central and Eastern Europe that is controlled by a state-owned company. Its services will be available to domestic and foreign organizations. The planned deadline for project completion and commissioning is the second half of 2021.
ABOUT EXATEL
EXATEL is a Polish telecommunications operator, as well as an ICT, cybersecurity and satellite connectivity service provider. It has constructed and now manages one of the largest fibre-optic networks in Poland – one that is over 20 500 km long. It develops solutions for business, other operators and the public sector. EXATEL provides data transmission for all of Poland’s commercial banks and 91 companies operating within the energy sector. It has also designed and built the OST (Nationwide ICT Network) for government administration communication. The entity manages connections with 310 domestic and 136 foreign operators and It is present in international traffic exchange points in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Moscow and Kiev. As part of research and development projects, the company develops proprietary ICT and cybersecurity solutions, such as the Polish TAMA anti-DDoS, SDNbox or SDNcore. It is the originator of the #Polskie5G project – a single wholesale operator of a nationwide wireless 5G mobile communication network in the 700 MHz band. Since 2017, it has been fully state-owned and has been supervised by the Minister of State Assets.
