The Republic's second-biggest mobile network, O2 Ireland, yesterday said revenues grew by more than 9 per cent to €371 million in the six months ended September 30th.

The company revealed that profits before tax fell by 20 per cent to €43 million from €54 million during the comparable six months last year. This reflected increased operating costs.

However, its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) figure shows that margins grew year-on-year during the six-month period.

EBITDA grew to €147 million from €114 million last year. The company said that its EBITDA margin grew to 39.6 per cent from 36 per cent during the same period in 2002.

Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) increased to €96 million from €61 million.

The company's figures showed that O2 had over 1.27 million Irish subscribers at the end of last September. Of these, 901,000 were pre-paid, while the remainder were post-paid or bill-paying customers.

At September 30th last year, it had 1.2 million customers, with 836,000 pre-paid and 362,000 bill-paying subsribers.

Its average revenues per user (ARPU) figures showed that pre-paid customers paid an average of €349 a year for their services, compared with €333 in 2002. Bill-paying subscribers paid an average of €1,037 a year, up from €1,015 in 2002. Combined ARPU was €551 a year, compared with €542 in 2002.

The number of text messages sent by O2 customers during the six-month period grew by 17 per cent to 272 million from 224 million.

In turnover terms, the number of text messages sent during the period translated into more than €20 million in revenues.

Overall, data as a proportion of revenues grew to 18.4 per cent from 14.1 per cent last year.

O2 financial director Mr Niall Norton yesterday told The Irish Times that O2's charges were as much as 25 per cent lower than in the UK.

However, he said Irish people used their phones more than most other Europeans.

The network's Irish subscribers' average talk-time per month was 192 minutes during the half year, up from 188 in 2002.

The company is continuing to invest in the network for the next generation of mobile technology (3G).

According to Mr Norton, the company had spent €114 million acquiring the licence and €600 million so far in rolling out the network itself.

O2, which was originally Esat Digifone before it was taken over by BT, employs 1,400 staff in this country.