International mobile operator mmO2, which trades in Ireland as O2, has reported a massive £9.6 billion sterling write-off, some of which related to the cost of buying 3G mobile licences.
The annual results show earnings almost doubling to £859m but when that massive write-off is taken into account, the company made a £10.2 billion loss. Total revenue rose 14% to £4.874 billion.
mmO2 - Europe's fifth-largest mobile phone group - reported an 11% growth in customer base for the year to 19.4 million and net debt at the firm was reduced by £68m to £549m, a fall of 12%.
'In these year-end results, the size of the exceptional charges we have taken has masked the strong underlying performance delivered in our first full year as an independent company,' mmO2 chairman David Varney said.
'However this impairment enables us to go forward with a balance sheet that reflects realistic assumptions about the potential of our business to grow, and to deliver attractive returns for shareholders', he added.
mmO2's Irish customer base grew by 6.4% during the year to 1.255 million. The operator found that the average number of minutes spent on calls by Irish users is 188 minutes, for UK customers is 107 minutes and for German customers is 109.
In Ireland, mobile data grew to 15.3% of service revenues for the year, from 9.7% last year and the number of text messages sent during 2003 increased to 992 million from 666 million in the previous year.
