CABLE & Wireless (C&W) which trades as LIME recorded its third consecutive year of losses at $3.39 billion as at March 2010 which was over ten times the prior year’s loss and accompanied by negative working capital.

The main reason for its loss was the more-than-doubling of its depreciation and amortisation expenses from $3 billion to $7 billion related to its new network. It caused the telecom giant to record an operating loss of $2.65 billion versus an operating profit of $1.4 billion a year prior. The loss slashed by half the group’s cash and equivalents to $364.5 million as at March 2010 from $700.2 million in 2009. The group’s balance sheet also recorded $1.28 billion in negative working capital which grew from $460 million in negative working capital in 2009.

LIME Jamaica was previously a highly profitable group earning over $2 billion in profit prior to 2006 with the exclusion of 2004 when it made a loss of $5.4 billion due to a write-off of its network. It, however, recorded a $302.8 million loss from $21.99 billion in revenues in 2009 and a $4.19 billion loss in 2008 from revenues of $22.89 billion.

Returning to its 2010 income statement the group made $22.05 billion in revenues which was flat compared with the previous year. Income from the fixed line division declined to $11.2 billion from $12.5 billion a year prior; data & other jumped from $4.5 billion to $5.9 billion; and mobile declined $4.9 billion to $4.89 billion year on year. Interestingly, its data & other division was the only division that increased revenues year on year which allowed it to usurp the mobile division in revenues.

The data growth justifies the announcement by its parent, Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), to construct a multimillion submarine fibre-optic cable that will more than double its carrier capacity in the region. The cable will link Jamaica and the Cayman Islands to the British Virgin Islands (Tortola) as well as the Dominican Republic to form the new ”East-West Cable”. CWC’s Caribbean business, LIME, which is installing the cable, is expected to have it operational by early 2011. The East-West Cable is the third new submarine cable built by Cable & Wireless Communications in the region since 2008, according to CWC, and will add to the CBUS cable between Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands and the Gemini-Bermuda cable between Bermuda and the east coast of the US.

CWC said it was positioning itself ”as the leading wholesale capacity provider through the Caribbean Sea offering primary and secondary routes to New York and Miami.”

LIME currently operates in 13 Caribbean countries, and is developing a range of new fixed broadband and mobile data services for customers, which will require high–quality capacity support.