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Israel’s Partner Comms reports Q1 profit jump, expects little Q2 virus impact

Partner Communications , Israel's second-largest mobile phone operator, reported a 400% jump in quarterly profit, and said it did not expect the coronavirus to have a "significant harmful" effect on its second quarter results. Partner said on Wednesday it earned 10 million shekels ($2.8 million) in the first quarter, up from 2 million a year earlier. Revenue was up 2% to 807 million shekels. Read More...

JERUSALEM, May 27 (Reuters) – Partner Communications , Israel’s second-largest mobile phone operator, reported a 400% jump in quarterly profit, and said it did not expect the coronavirus to have a “significant harmful” effect on its second quarter results.

Partner said on Wednesday it earned 10 million shekels ($2.8 million) in the first quarter, up from 2 million a year earlier. Revenue was up 2% to 807 million shekels.

The company’s cellular subscriber base climbed to 2.676 million in the quarter from 2.657 in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Partner said the COVID-19 outbreak began to have a harmful impact on its business, since the halt of international travel led to a steep decrease in revenue from roaming services while the closure of shopping malls hurt sales of equipment.

But that was largely offset by cost-cutting measures, such as temporarily reducing its workforce and putting a significant number of employees on unpaid leave, Chief Financial Officer Tamir Amar said.

“The harmful impact on roaming services is expected to continue to a large extent through the second quarter, but its adverse effects on the business are expected to be mitigated by the cost-cutting measures implemented,” Amir said.

He said the company could not estimate the impact on results for 2020 as a whole, since it will largely depend “on the pace and extent of resumption of international travel and on the extent to which the company is able to mitigate the adverse impact of the decrease in revenues from roaming services”.

The number of subscribers to Partner’s Internet-based TV service grew to 200,000, while its fibre optics network reached 625,000 households. Partner this month expanded its partnership with Netflix with a joint TV package with the global streaming service.

($1 = 3.5163 shekels) (Reporting by Steven Scheer; editing by Jason Neely)

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