• Debt prepayment of €336 million
• Total service revenues reach €4,037 million, up 4.9% over 9M 2008
• EBITDA grows to €1,538 million from €1,507 million in 9M 2008, margin at 36.3%
• Growth in Operating Income (EBIT) reaching €816 million
• Group net profit in first nine months of 2009 of €281 million, up 2.2%, notwithstanding higher income taxes for €100 million over previous year
• 2 million direct fixed-line customers, up 15.5% over previous year
• 17.9 million mobile customers (+9.1% over 9M 2008)
• Growth accelerating in Q3 2009 with service revenues up 5.4% and mobile service revenues growing 4.3% over same period of 2008

The Board of Directors of Wind met today to review and approve the financial results for the period ended September 30, 2009.

Results as of September 30, 2009

In the first nine months of 2009 Wind increased its total revenues by 4.7% over the previous year to over €4,230 million. The solid performance was driven by the ongoing strong results in both the mobile business, with service revenues growing 2.1% to €2,719 million, and in the fixed-line business with service revenues growing 11.2% to €1,318 million, including the impact of the acquisition of M-Link. It is worth noting that the increase in mobile service revenues is all the more significant considering the termination rate cut in July 2009.
Wind Telecomunicazioni’s EBITDA in the first nine months of 2009 reached €1,538 million, growing 2.0% over the corresponding period of 2008, notwithstanding the lower impact of certain non-recurring items versus 2008. This result, arising from the combined effect of the strong top-line performance coupled with a control on costs, was nevertheless negatively impacted by the increase of the ULL and WLR fees applied by Telecom Italia from January and February 2009, respectively.
The EBITDA margin for the first nine months of 2009 was 36.3%.
EBIT in the nine months ended September 30, 2009 grew 11.2% over the same period of 2008 reaching €816 million; EBT in the nine months of the year grew an impressive 27.1% over the previous year to €485 million.
The consolidated group net profit for the first nine months increased to €281 million, up 2.2% from the net profit of €275 million recorded in the corresponding period of the previous year, as a result of higher taxes in the current year versus 2008.
Wind’s net financial indebtedness as of September 30, 2009 was €8,508 million.
The continued strong cash flow generation of the company enables Wind to announce an anticipated debt repayment of the June 2011 maturity for a total amount of €336 million.

In the third quarter of 2009 Wind saw a further acceleration of its growth momentum, with total revenues reaching €1,412 million and EBITDA exceeding €540 million, with a 38.3% margin. EBIT in the three months ended September 30, 2009 grew 19.6% to €329 million. Net profit for the third quarter of 2009 was €111 million.

Commercial performance

Mobile
In the nine months ended September 30, 2009 Wind continued to grow increasing its customer base to 17.9 million subscribers, up 9.1% over the same period of the previous year, having achieved a market-leading 387 thousand net additions in the third quarter alone. The growth was ensured by a coherent strategy centered on simple and straight forward customer propositions at the right price and delivered with best in class customer service.
Wind’s mobile ARPU in the first nine months of the year was €17.5, decreasing over the same period of 2008, mainly as a result of the decline of incoming revenues resulting from the interconnection rate cut in July 2009, but improving over the first and second quarter of the year. The sharp increase in customer base coupled with a highly effective community proposition contributed to the strong growth in voice traffic volumes which grew 9.7% YoY driven by increases in both outgoing and incoming off-net traffic.
In the first nine months of 2009 Wind continued to successfully deploy its HSDPA mobile Internet strategy, based on time-based bundled offerings, which delivered a 68.7% increase in revenues over the corresponding period of the previous year. In line with its stated strategy Wind also rolled out its “All inclusive” offerings, which include a bundle of minutes, messages, data traffic and handsets for a monthly fee, targeted at the high value and SME/SOHO segments.
The annualized churn rate in the first nine months of the year was 24.4%, the lowest level in the Italian mobile market, and was driven by the strong performance in overall customer satisfaction.

Fixed-line and Internet
In the first nine months of 2009 Infostrada continued to achieve a strong performance both in terms of growth and in terms of market share. The voice customer base continued its positive trend with an 8.5% growth year on year and achieving 2.8 million voice subscribers, of which 1.93 million directly connected to its network in unbundling (an increase of 16.4% over the same period of 2008), and 459 thousand in WLR/Bitstream access. The successful positioning of Infostrada’s offerings was further confirmed by 43 thousand direct net additions and 30 thousand WLR/Bitstream net additions in the third quarter alone. A highly effective communication strategy coupled with a uniform proposition that enables Infostrada to make its offering portfolio available throughout the country, also in the areas not directly covered by the Infostrada network, has further enhanced this performance.
As a result of the ULL and WLR monthly fee increases by Telecom Italia, effective from January and February 2009, respectively, Infostrada decided to pursue a “value for money” approach with commercial and advertising strategies centred around this concept, thereby further differentiating itself from Telecom Italia.
In the nine months ended September 30, 2009, Infostrada succeeded in growing its broadband subscribers to 1.56 million, up 24.1% YoY, with 42 thousand net additions in the third quarter of the year. The growth in subscribers coupled with a stable Broadband ARPU of €18.4 enabled Infostrada to achieve a 25.7% increase in Broadband revenues over same period of previous year.
As a result of its appealing offerings addressing the various market requirements and segments, Infostrada also continued to build on the success of its dual-play offerings, with its customer base growing by 31.5% to over 1.24 million subscribers, having achieved 50 thousand net adds in the third quarter alone.
The fixed-line ARPU in the first nine months of 2009 declined marginally over the same period of the previous year reaching €35.3, with the decline in voice ARPU, due to interconnection rate cut, not fully compensated by the increase in data ARPU.
During the first nine months of 2009, total voice traffic exceeded 13.6 billion minutes, up 8.2% over the same period of previous year.