Telecoms holding company, Millicom International has reported a 13% rise in its revenues to US$1,018 million, while EBITDA was up 16% to $484 million.

Mikael Grahne, President and CEO of Millicom, commented: “For the first time in Millicom’s history, we have exceeded $1 billion of revenues in a quarter. Our profitability remains strong with an EBITDA level of 47.5%.

“Within a maturing voice market, our strategy aims at developing value-added services (VAS) which we see as the next growth opportunity. In Latin America we have increasingly focused on innovation and on ARPU stabilization, favoring 3G penetration over the retention of low ARPU voice customers. In Africa we are focusing on both penetration and innovation. We are pleased with the execution of this strategy and our Q3 results confirm its effectiveness: we are getting closer to a stage of ARPU stabilization with a 4.1% decline year-on-year in Q3 (excluding the country mix impact), VAS now contribute 23.3% of recurring revenues, we have 1.5 million customers using 3G data services in Latin America, up 18% over Q2, and our local currency revenue growth reached 11.7%, the highest level since the beginning of 2009.

“We maintain our commitment to the base business as shown by the growth in voice revenues of 10% year-on-year in Q3, up from 7% in Q2 and 5% in Q1. Our strong focus on branding, smart pricing and distribution has been instrumental in this achievement, allowing us to resist commoditization.

All data includes the full consolidation of Honduras from July 1, 2010. Quarterly historical data has been restated for the full consolidation of Honduras

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