European headquartered telecoms firm Vimpelcom has reported poor revenues and earnings for its sub-Saharan Africa market, despite subscriber growth in the region.

VimpelCom, which is listed on the Nasdaq, has a total of 219 million mobile subscribers across markets that include Russia, Italy, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Algeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic (CAR) and Canada.

In these markets, the firm operates under the names "Beeline", "Kyivstar", "djuice", "WIND", "Infostrada" "Mobilink", "Leo", "banglalink", "Telecel", and "Djezzy".

VimpelCom primarily trades as Telecel in African markets such as Zimbabwe and the CAR. In markets such as Burundi, Vimpelcom trades as Leo.

And the global telecoms firm has this week reported weak revenues and earnings for its Telecel Globe operations in sub-Saharan Africa for the third quarter of 2013.

VimpelCom has reported that total operating revenues for Telecel Globe in sub-Saharan Africa amounted to $23 million, down 11% from $26 million compared to the same period for 2012.

Meanwhile, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) were at a loss of $3 million for the third quarter of 2013 compared to a gain of $11 million for the same period in 2012: a fall of 127%.

Despite these poor figures, Telecel Globe’s number of subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa jumped 4% from 4.231 million in the third quarter of 2012 to 4.423 million in the same period in 2013.

A weaker financial performance has hit Telecel Globe following problems the firm experienced with particularly its Zimbabwean operations.

In June, Telecel Zimbabwe’s operating licence expired but was not renewed because the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) said that the operator had not complied with Zimbabwe’s indigenisation policy.

The policy requires that all foreign firms in Zimbabwe give up the majority of their ownership to black Zimbabweans.

Subsequently, Zimbabwe’s largest mobile operator Econet temporarily disconnected from Telecel’s network, as Econet claimed it was bound by Zimbabwe’s telecoms regulations not to connect to unlicensed operators.

In August, Potraz renewed Telecel’s operating license and Econet reconnected.

Vimpelcom does mention the Zimbabwe debacle in its third quarter financial results.

But the firm does speak of its negative African results.

“In USD terms, 3Q13 revenues were negatively impacted by regulatory and governmental actions in the business unit in Africa & Asia and the MTR cuts in Italy,” says VimpelCom.

Regarding VimpelCom’s global operations, the company has reported total revenues of 5.7 billion for the third quarter of 2013, a decline of 1% year-on-year.

Ebitda fell 2% year-on-year to $2.5 billion, and its total mobile subscriber base increased 5% year-on-year to reach 219 million.