O2 may reduce roaming rates as profits set to improve

O2 Ireland will report a growth in its profits and improved operating margins for the 12 months to the end of March 2003, the company's parent said yesterday.

Accounts filed recently by O2 Ireland show it made a healthy pre-tax profit of €77 million on revenues of €640 million in the year to end March 2002.

The company also said it would make it cheaper and easier for Irish mobile phone users to make calls when they travel abroad on holiday this summer.

Roaming rates are the charges that subscribers pay when they use their mobiles to make or receive a call when abroad. Currently consumers pay 20 or 30 times more for calls made abroad compared with domestic tariffs.

But an O2 Ireland spokeswoman said yesterday the company would probably introduce a number of promotional roaming rates for the summer. A similar scheme operated by O2 last year cut the price of roaming calls in the UK, Spain and Portugal.

O2 Ireland will also make it easier for its pre-pay consumers - more than 700,000 users - to use their handsets when they travel abroad.

The firm is introducing a new system that will cancel the requirement for some pre-pay customers to type in special codes when they dial a number.

Pre-pay users will also be able to receive their voicemails by simply using the standard dial in code of 171, rather than typing in a much more complicated dial code, said the O2 spokeswoman.

Meanwhile, mmO2, the British mobile group, said it expected its full-year earnings to rise in line with analysts' expectations. Its British division would also beat a 10 per cent revenue growth target, said the mobile group.

However, financial analysts said the mobile group's statement yesterday also raised the possibility of asset impairment charges when the company reports full-year results in May.

MmO2, which is Europe's fifth-largest mobile phone operator, said it expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to be in line with analysts' forecasts, which are £804-£892 million sterling (€1,177-€1,305 million). - (Additional reporting by Reuters)