Telecoms provider Go plc said today that it made an operating profit of €18m last year, down from €22.4 million in the previous year. Both years included items considered to be of unusual nature.

Normalised operating profit of GO for 2013 was  €20.8 million  (2012: €22.2 million) whilst normalised EBITDA amounted to €48.4 million (2012: €51.3 million).

It recalled that 2012 results were positively impacted  by a one-off gain of €11.4 million following the disposal of a plot of land at Qawra.

For 2013, Go said it made a profit before tax of €15.6 million (2012 = €26.7m). The earnings per share amounted to €0.116 as against €0.173 in 2012.

The company said that its customer base increased by 1% during 2013 and stood in excess of 500,000 customer connections, making it the largest base of any operator on the Islands.

The number of customers adopting bundles of services across fixed, broadband, TV and mobile continued to increase in 2013 and helped to deliver robust levels of revenues, profitability and cash generation from core operations.

Yiannos Michaelides, CEO at GO, said: “Thanks to a great effort by all our employees GO has once again delivered a strong set of results, despite the challenges facing our industry. Our focus on investing in people and technology to be able to deliver market leading products and excellent customer service is delivering the right results. The usage of all our services and the levels of customer satisfaction have continued on an upward trend. This coupled with our ongoing efforts to manage costs, augurs well for the future.”

The directors have recommended the payment of a final net dividend of €0.07 per share. The payment of this net dividend amounts to the sum of €7,091,734. The final dividend will be paid on May  9.