Pond Island - St. Maarten’s incumbent telecommunication provider, TelEm Group, has posted a profit for the year 2016. The actual figures have been presented to the company’s Supervisory Board of Directors and the Government shareholder in recent weeks for their consideration and review and are not being made public at this time.
The announcement was made to TelEm Group personnel in a brief internal announcement Friday, in which Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Kendall Dupersoy, and Chief Financial officer (CFO) Mrs. Helma Etnel, praised management and staff for the positive financial returns for 2016 in the face of the trend of decreased revenues in the telecommunication industry generally.
Mr. Dupersoy said he has followed the company’s financial progress as a former member of the Supervisory Board of Directors, and most recently, from the start of the year 2017, as the company’s Chief Executive Officer and is “pleased with the figures for 2016, considering the challenges that were faced.”
He intends to continue to put things in place at TelEm Group to maintain the company’s sustainability by rolling out exciting new products and services based on investments made in the past two years that will soon be coming to fruition.
The CEO informed staff that he will be meeting with them to outline the company’s achievements in the past financial year and also to look ahead to what is taking place in the current financial year with projections for the year.
“We are already making some fundamental changes in the way we have been doing business and the persons we have been doing business with and we are also forming new friendships and partnerships for the future,” said Mr. Dupersoy, noting that amongst these new “Friends” is the MER Group from Israel, who will be starting work on the company’s massive Fiber-To-The-Home roll out island-wide within the next few weeks.
Amongst the achievements outlined for the financial year 2016 are:
• The company’s high standard of completing its financial statements for the year timely and its high ethical standards based on a 95% Corporate Governance compliance rating.
• New loan with more attractive financing terms
• Strategic decision-making, including the purchase of St. Maarten Cable TV and installation of new state of the art switch for international and local fixed services, new prepaid platform
• New international network infrastructures – for mobile voice and data and also a new Internet infrastructure.
• Final phases of soon to be introduces products and services included Fiber to the Home (FTTH), LTE/4G and IPTV.
The CEO is also pointing to other important developments for the community in the past year, including the laying of the groundwork for a Camera Surveillance Project in the Philipsburg area in collaboration with the Police and the Ministry of Justice, a Multi-million dollar project to provide redundant broadband capacity to St. Maarten in the event of damage to the company’s main submarine fiber cable SMPR-1, and the upgrade of mobile cell sites to improve quality of service for customers.
TelEm Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mrs. Helma Etnel, said the Net profit made by TelEm Group for the financial year 2016, is evidence of the sound business practices and strategies that were put in place to counter decreased revenues resulting from new trends in the local telecommunication industry. She said traditional revenue streams for the past few years have been severely affected by free voice and data services including social media such as Skype, Whatsapp, Facebook, Messenger Etc, leaving TelEm Group to find new ways and means to sustain the company and ensure its survival in a competitively tough and oversaturated tiny local telecommunication market.
“Our purchase of St. Maarten Cable TV, added to other strategic decisions we have taken in the area of a new fibre infrastructure for St. Maarten and the installation of a new internet platform and our investment into the soon-to-be launched LTE/4G mobile voice and data network have all put us in a great position to continue to ride what has been a very challenging wave for the past few years,” said the CFO.
Mrs. Etnel thanked the Supervisory Board of Directors and the Shareholder Representative for their continued support of the company plans. She meantime reserved extreme high praise for the TelEm Group entire staff, the management team and her executive colleagues for their hard work and dedication and contribution in successfully completing the many ongoing projects, realizing a profit over the year 2016.
“I am pleased that we were successful in building very solid foundation for the future of our Telecommunication company even though I would still remind that we are still left to take some crucial strategic decisions that are pending with the shareholder, at some time in the future,” said Mrs. Etnel.
She said TelEm Group personnel have good cause to be proud of their achievements in the last financial year and counts on everyone for their continued support and commitment as the company continues to move forward.
