Croatia's largest telecom company, Hrvatski Telekom (HT), posted a net profit of 1.06 billion kuna (€143 million) in 2018, up by a whopping 22.9 percent year-on-year.

The company, owned by Deutsche Telekom which holds a 51 percent stake, holds about a 60 percent share on the local telecom market.

The company said that in 2018 their revenue totalled 7.783 billion kuna, or 0.4 percent up from 2017, and added that it spent 1.83 billion kuna last year in improving the network infrastructure and developing new services.

In recent years it announced plans to expand into the wider region, which included the acquisition of a majority stake in Crnogorski Telekom (CT) in Montenegro in January 2017, which holds about a third of the mobile services market in that neighbouring country.

“The company looks back at another successful business year in which it reinforced its leading position in all segments of the telecommunications market,” CEO Davor Tomaskovic said, and added that “along with the growth of key financial indicators, the previous year was also marked by a strong investment cycle.”

The company board said HT plans to pay out a 10 kn dividend per share, totalling 812 million kuna, with 70 percent of the amount coming from 2018 profits and the remaining 30 percent from profits in previous years.

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