"We've had a fabulous year. It's a strong business and we have continued to improve performance," Ms Danuta Gray, chief executive of 02 Ireland, said yesterday following the publication of results for the year to March 31st. 02 Ireland, formerly Esat Digifone, contributed just under 10 per cent to turnover of mm02, which reported a rise in total revenue of 11.5 per cent to €6.9 billion.

Ms Gray said 02 Ireland had increased revenues, its customer numbers were up by 21 per cent year-on-year and it had increased earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margins. She was confident 02 Ireland would win one of the 3G licences being auctioned. "We have applied for A and B licences and it's a sign of the group's confidence . . . that we bid for a licence as well."

O2 Ireland's service revenues (the revenues from calls) of €595 million were up from €465 million in 2001, while total revenue for the year grew by 28 per cent to €640 million. EBITDA increased to €198 million from €109 million the year before. The full-year EBITDA margin improved to 30.9 per cent from 22 per cent in 2001. Capital expenditure in the year was reduced by 33 per cent to €138 million and the customer base grew by 21 per cent to 1.18 million, with 30 per cent of the year-end base comprising contract customers.

The Subscribers Acquisition Cost (SAC) - the cost of getting both pre-paid and contract customers onto the networks - was €122, compared with €153 the previous year. Annual contract and pre-pay ARPU (average revenue per user) spend remained substantially the highest in the mmO2 group at €1,008 and €319, respectively. Some 667 million SMS (short message system) messages were carried out during the year, double the total in the previous year. Loss before tax was €1.4 billion compared with €5.5 billion in the previous year.