A1 Croatia telecom had generated revenues of €428.1 million in 2020, or 1.1 percent down from 2019. The company's pre-tax earnings (EBITDA) dropped by 1.2 percent to €143.4 million, A1 Croatia - part of the A1 Telekom Austria Group, reported on Wednesday.

The company attributed the drop to effects of the the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the devastating earthquakes which hit Zagreb and central Croatia, in March and December respectively.

The fall in profits mostly came because of decreased revenues from roaming fees and the somewhat lower value of the local currency kuna.

The last year’s delay in government’s approval for 5G spectrum bands had prevented the implementation of significant investments that had been planned in 2020, so investments totaled only €49.6 million, A1 said.

On the other hand, good results in the mobile phone segment and the increased demand for broadband Internet helped A1 achieved a 1.2 percent increase in the market share and an increase of 5.3 percent in the number of its mobile phone subscribers. However, it also registered a fall in the number of landline subscribers (TV, Internet and telephone) of 2 percent.

The CEO of A1 Croatia, Jiri Dvorjancanski, said that 2020 was ‘the hardest year since the company had started doing business in Croatia’, adding though that the disasters caused by the earthquakes and pandemic were an additional motivation to ‘turn to the community’ and the company’s customers.