UPDATE: Belgacom Profit Hit By Pricing Cap, But Revenue Rises

Belgacom SA (BELG.BT), Belgium's biggest telecommunications company, Friday said net profit fell 7.9% in the third quarter, hit by new Europe-wide rules capping the prices it can charge customers.

Net profit for the three months ended Sept. 30 slipped to EUR199 million, from EUR216 million a year earlier. But revenue held up well, rising 11% to EUR1.64 billion from EUR1.48 billion a year earlier. The company proposed a gross interim dividend of EUR0.50 a share.

"This is a remarkable performance, given that our business was strongly affected by regulatory measures in the third quarter," said Chief Executive Didier Bellensin a statement.

He said the strong revenue growth was driven by the full consolidation of its international carrier business, and increased sales of multi-play packs which offer customers several services.

Belgacom, which is majority-owned by the Belgian state, last year merged its international carrier services business with that of MTN Group Ltd. (MTN.JO), a telecoms group operating in Africa and the Middle East.

Stripping out the effects of the MTN acquisition, Belgacom said revenue for the first nine months of the year dropped just 0.3% to EUR4.46 billion, despite a EUR75 million shortfall from the cost of the new European cap on prices.

The cost was offset by solid growth in businesses like Belgacom TV where customer numbers grew 39% to 920,000, he said. Sales of multi-play packs combining TV, Internet and telephone also jumped 78% year on year to 807,000 and the new trend in smart phones powered a 58% rise in mobile Internet customers and an increase in data downloads.

This was despite strong competition from small but fast-growing Flemish cable operator Telenet NV (TNET.BT) and Mobistar NV (MOBB.BT), owned by France Telecom (FTE) which was traditionally a mobile company but has widened its scope to include TV and Internet, offering multi-play packs of its own.

-By Carolyn Henson, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]