Lietuvos Telekomas, a dominant provider of fixed-line telephony services in Lithuania, hiked six-month profits by 2.7 times, compared with the previous year. After this report, analysts could revise the yearly estimate for this company.
The senior executives of the telecom also pledged to fight for the internet market and keep up a big growth.
"Because of that tendency, analysts could revise the forecast upward, Arvydas Jasikevicius, the senior financial broker of SEB Vilniaus Bankas, told ELTA.
According to earlier estimates, Lietuvos Telekomas should generate about 70 million litas (20 million euros) worth of profits this year.
For the first half of 2005, the telecommunications company recorded a net gain of 37.2 million litas (10.7 million euros). The income in this period was almost flat year-on-year, constituting 360 million litas (104 million euros).
In Q2 of this year, the enterprise raised profits 2.1 times to 19.9 million litas (5.7 million euros). The second-quarter income rose 3.8 percent to 184 million litas (52 million euros), versus the same period of 2004.
Arunas Sikstas, the chief executive of the telecom, on Wednesday attended a telephonic conference to present the half-year results. Siskta said that the growth in the second quarter could reflect the annual tendency.
The chief executive however would not present a forecast for 2006.
It is hard to predict, even abstractly, the results of the coming year, since we begin to invest in the development of the digital television infrastructure in the second half of this year, he said.
Siksta revealed the bid of his company to control at least 90 percent of the fixed-line telephony market and no less than half of the internet market in Lithuania.
"We control about 45.7 percent of the internet market, and want to fight for a larger share", the chief executive of the firm said.
Small service providers, mostly cable televisions, share another large portion of this market -- 32.5 percent.
The Scandinavian concern TeliaSonera holds 60-percent interest in Lietuvos Telekomas.
The stock of the Lithuanian company on Tuesday, sold for 2.18 litas (0.63 euros) a share. At this price, the company is worth 1.77 billion litas (513 million euros).
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