EBITDA margins continue to decline: regions converge

World EBITDA margin experienced a normal seasonal drop in Q4 2005, but year-on-year continued its slow decline towards 35%. This was because of mixed fortunes in the different regions with declines in Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and Western Europe being partially offset by gains in the Americas. In the Americas profitability is improving thanks to economies of scale on new networks and some consolidation. Eastern Europe looks to be starting to saturate and is likely to settle into a period of EBITDA margins softening - although not enough operators have reported from there to be firm on this yet.