Millicom International — the holding company that operates as Tigo across Latin America — has reported that its third quarter revenues rose by 13.1% to $1.15 billion

Excluding currency fluctuations, revenues would have risen by 9.1% compared to a year ago. EBITDA was also up, by 9.3% % to $529 million.

However net profit plunged to US$288 million compared to US$1.2 billion a year ago – although last year had been boosted by a one-off gain of $1.06 billion on the revaluation of the Honduran operation.

Mobile customers were up 13% versus Q3 10, bringing the total customer base to 42.2 million

Mikael Grahne, President and CEO of Millicom, commented: “Our operations in Latin America demonstrated continued momentum in top line growth and ARPU stabilization, driven primarily by local currency revenue growth in mobile data of 93%. Mobile data now contributes 11% of recurring revenue in the region and fixed data 4%.”

The company however warned that it no longer sees a correlation between growth in customer numbers and future revenue growth and, overall, expects customer intake to continue to be quite volatile due to a range of factors including the macro environment, seasonality, competitor promotions and marketing activities.

The company is now focusing on 3G data and VAS customers who, on average, produce a higher additional ARPU than 2G voice-only customers.

See the Tigo records in Latin Target.

What is Latin Target? Find out at www.latintarget.com