Snapshot: GTD's business in the first half

Although Chilean telco GTD reported higher revenues in H1, it was unable to reverse losses.

GTD's revenues reached 232 billion pesos (US$244 million), up 7.2% year-on-year, but the company also reported a 4.83bn-peso loss, compared to a 1.29bn-peso loss a year ago, according to the latest results report.

Higher revenues were driven by a 12.4% growth in the business segment, involving datacenter services, cybersecurity, infrastructure and networks, as well as services for wholesalers.

Sales costs increased by 9.9% mainly due to exchange rate effects, depreciation of investments and business growth.

The company is planning to sell up to 49% of its datacenter business after pulling out of a partnership with investment group Macquarie last year. GTD owns 10 datacenters in Chile, Colombia and Peru.

In Peru, the Lurín facility was planned to start operations in August, now scheduled for September.

In the first half of the year, the percentage of subsidies collected for the Escuelas 2030 project also increased. 

In 2020, GTD won a contract as part of the Connectivity for Education 2030 project. The contract involves providing connectivity for 3,800 schools in 129 localities by 2029.

The entire program involves connecting 10,000 schools and has an annual budget of 13bn pesos. 

GTD's Chilean business generated 193bn pesos in H1, up 1.8% and leveraged by a 5.7% growth in the business segment.

Residential revenues fell by 7.3% because of “the effects of the country’s economic context, the high competition in the fixed market and the substitution of fixed telephone and pay television services.”

GTD has a 6.7% share of the fixed internet market, considering all technologies. The highly competitive market is led by Movistar with 29.3%, followed by VTR with 23.3%, Mundo 19.4%, Entel 8.1% and Claro 6.8%, according to latest data from regulator Subtel.

In Peru and Colombia, where the company only offers business services, revenue increased by 33.1% to 13.4bn pesos and 61.2% to 8.64bn pesos.

Other operations, which include the business in Spain and that of cybersecurity unit SecureSoft, generated revenues of 17.4bn pesos.

INVESTMENTS

GTD reduced its investments by nearly 10bn pesos annually to 38.3bn pesos, representing 16.5% of revenues, compared to investments of 48.2bn pesos a year ago, representing 22.3%.

Of total investments, 69% were related to customer growth and the rest went to capacity planning, network growth and upgrades.