The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) earned $329 million in revenue for Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC) -- just under 14 percent of CWC's revenue for the year ending March 30, 2016. CWC owns 49 percent of BTC.
The company posted its financials last week, and while BTC accounted for 13.8 percent of the company's $2.4 billion in revenue, the company reported that data in The Bahamas was down seven percent.
Said CWC, "Data penetration across the group grew seven percentage points year-over-year, crossing the 50 percent threshold, while mobile data ARPU (average revenue per user) increased 26 percent. These improvements in data services were partially offset by continued weakness in mobile voice usage due to increasing over-the-top (OTT) services (e.g., WhatsApp) pressures, reduced roaming rates and ongoing competition, which particularly affected The Bahamas (down seven percent year-over-year) and Panama (flat year-over-year)."
Competition -- or preparation for competition -- also likely played a role in lower revenue in The Bahamas as CWC implements its strategy "to emphasize services and products that generate recurring revenue streams over one-time sales".
According to the report, The Bahamas' revenue was six percent lower on a pro forma basis, following renegotiation of roaming agreements ahead of mobile competition expected later this year.
Among CWC's fiscal 2016 results, the company reported subscriber growth across all products; revenue of $2.4 billion, up two percent year-over-year on a pro forma basis; profit of $126 million, compared to loss of $33 million in the prior year;
adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $950 million, up 11 percent y-o-y on a pro forma basis and that the acquisition and integration of Columbus Communications was "on-track."
The company's Caribbean revenue was up three percent to $1.1 billion on a pro forma basis, driven by eight percent mobile and seven percent broadband revenue growth.
"Our Caribbean region, where we successfully launched our unified Flow brand during the year, continued to see strong mobile subscriber growth, up 10 percent year-over-year, including 16 percent growth in Jamaica," the company said, adding that in the Caribbean, broadband internet subscribers grew by 25,000 or five percent year-over-year.
"Of note, we have been recognized by a third party as being the fastest broadband internet service provider in the majority of our Caribbean markets, including Jamaica and Barbados ... From a product perspective, mobile revenue increased one percent year-over-year on a pro forma basis to $936 million, driven by strong performance in the Caribbean, which generated eight percent revenue growth. The group's mobile revenue result was underpinned by a 16 percent year-over-year increase in Jamaican mobile subscribers, supported by a 64 percent year-over-year increase in mobile data plan take-up."

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