LIME Jamaica reduced its loss by two-thirds to $549 million for the September quarter but it still can’t boost mobile and landline revenues over year-earlier levels.

The company made six per cent less revenue at $4.7 billion year-on-year, but it benefited from slashing its depreciation & amortisation charges by nearly $1 billion to $1.1 billion for the quarter year-on-year.

“Increases in international voice, data and other revenues were offset by declines in domestic voice and mobile revenues,” noted Chris Dehring, chairman and Andrew Cocking, director in a joint statement accompanying the financials. “The decrease (in amortisation and depreciation) reflects a one-off adjustment of $l.2 billion in September 2009 as a result of the review of the useful economic lives of the asset

base and the continuing transformation of the core networks.”

But even excluding depreciation and amortisation, total operating expenses at some $2.3 billion were flat year-on-year. The result is that its operating loss for the review period was $279 million an improvement on the $1 billion for the same quarter in 2009.

The group’s gross margin for the quarter was $3.1 billion compared with $3.2 billion for the same period in 2009 and the gross margin percentage was up by one percentage point at 65 per cent compared to 64 per cent in 2009.

The outlook remains reserved at the former monopoly which lost market share from competitors, especially Digicel which some eight years ago entered the market and became the mobile leader.

“The economic recession and the highly competitive environment continue to have an adverse impact on the company’s trading results. The company however, continues to invest significantly in the mobile and broadband networks to improve service delivery and customer service islandwide,” stated the company.

LIME also wants to divest part of its operations in order to fast track recovery at the telecom.

“The company is in… exploratory talks with a global service provider to examine the feasibility of the sale or disposition of… its field service operations. The talks are geared at examining opportunities to achieve cost savings and improved customer service,” it noted.

The Business Observer did not receive a response from LIME up to print on the specifics of its field service operation or its drain on financials.