FRESH FROM ITS MERGER with Columbus and launch of the new FLOW brand in Barbados, Cable & Wireless Communications is reporting an improved financial performance.
Last week in its first quarter trading update the company said group revenue was US$583 million, a four per cent increase. Excluding the Columbus operation, CWC’s revenue grew by two per cent. Columbus revenue grew by 12 per cent.
Commenting on the performance, CWC chief executive officer Phil Bentley said: “In the first quarter we have made a good start on integration and have maintained momentum through organic growth. Mobile revenue was flat against the prior year and good progress was made in broadband and video. In Panama, we saw a delay in government contracts being awarded.
“However, we have invested in our Latin American managed services sales and marketing teams and continued to see strong revenue growth there. Cost synergies have been identified and embedded in management targets for the year.
“A new retail store format has been developed with plans in place to harmonise our product offering under the FLOW brand; and early results from cross selling initiatives have been positive,” he added.
CWC said following the amalgamation with Columbus “we have agreed the new group organisation structure with senior management now accountable for individual synergy targets”.
“On July 17, we launched our first unified, quad-play product suite under the FLOW brand in Barbados and will roll out similar offerings across our other Caribbean markets through the year. We have also begun to cross sell mobile products in Barbados to FLOW video customers and have seen positive initial results with a call success rate greater than 10 per cent and over 1 000 new mobile postpaid subscribers added,” it noted.
“Progress is also being made in combining fixed networks in markets such as Barbados and plans to create more efficient field force and back office operations are well under way.” (SC)
