Omnitel: Revenues Almost doubled to Lit. 3,207 Billion, Investments at Lit. 805 Billion

Omnitel: Revenues Almost doubled to Lit. 3,207 Billion, Investments at Lit. 805 Billion

8 Million Subscribers in July. 50,000 Daily Internet Accesses to New www.3000.it Portal

July 16, 1999

Milan- Omnitel Pronto Italia, Italy's first private GSM operator,
announced first half results that confirm its rapid growth in the mobile
telecommunications market. Revenues almost doubled to Lit. 3,207
billion from Lit. 1,746 billion posted for the corresponding period of 1998
(+ 83.7%). In particular service revenues increased to Lit. 2,885 billion
compared to Lit. 1,495 billion in the first half of 1999 (+93.0%).

Net profit was Lit. 661 billion compared to Lit. 234 billion posted a year
earlier (+182.5%), despite a tax burden of Lit. 283 billion for the first six
months of 1999 compared to Lit. 20 billion for the corresponding period of
1998. Investments for the first six months of the year continued to grow,
reaching Lit. 805 billion (+76.1% compared to the corresponding period
last year). In the first half of 1999 Omnitel invested 121.8% of its net
profits.

EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation & Amortisation)
for the first half of 1999 was Lit. 1,294 billion, accounting for 44.9% of
service revenues, compared to Lit. 526 billion in 1998 (35.2% of service
revenues).

Average monthly usage per subscriber also increased significantly from
124 minutes/month during the first 6 months of 1998 to 132
minutes/month as of June 30, 1999.

These excellent results have been achieved thanks to constant growth in
the customer base which broke the 8 million threshold on July 9th, thus
confirming Omnitel's standing as the second largest mobile operator in
Europe. The net increase in the number of customers for the first half of
the year was 1.7 million.

Growth in the customer base was achieved by keeping customer
acquisition costs under tight control at Lit. 51,000 per new customer, the
lowest acquisition cost of any operator in Europe. Overall growth in the
Italian mobile market continued to be sustained with mobile telephony
reaching a penetration rate of 42% of the total Italian population.

The growth in customers was accompanied by an increase in Omnitel's
employees, now at 6,858, over half of which are employeed in customer
services. Omnitel has recently added to its seven operational Customer
Care Centres in Italy by opening an eighth Centre in Bologna, which when
fully operational will employ some 500 customer service representatives.

The increase in the number of customers is undoubtedly due to the success
of its commercial products and services, in particular
Personal¹⁹⁵, pre-paid Personal¹⁹⁵, Ricaricabile and Dippiu. In addition, starting this
summer, all of Omnitel's pre-paid plans support international roaming.

Significant growth was also recorded in the business sector with a 42.5%
increase in the number of customers compared to 27.3% growth in
Omnitel's overall subscribers. The success of the business and corporate
segments is due to products such as the pre-paid RAM Ricaricabile and
CAM (City Aziendale Mobile). Omnitel's offer for the corporate segment
has recently been enhanced by the introduction of RAM Integrata, which
also offers landline services to large corporate customers.

Omnitel 2000, the company's new Internet portal (www.2000.it), has met
with great success, with an average of 50,000 accesses daily during its first
15 days of operation. Access to the portal through voice recognition
technology and WAP will be available from July 20.

Three charts enclosed.

Operational Results

in billions of lire 1st half 1999 1st half 1998 1st half 1997

REVENUES 3,207 1,746 680
- service revenues 2,885 1,495 536
- other 322 251 144

EBITDA (Earnings 1,294 526 23
Before Interest, Taxes,
Depreciation & Amortization)

EBITDA as % of service Revenues 44.9% 35.2% 4.3%

Net profit (loss) 661 234 (172)

Net profit (loss) as % of 22.9% 15.6% 32.1%
Service revenues

Financial results

in billions of lire 1st half 1999 1st half 1998 1st half 1997

Operating cash flow 1,026 471 7
Change in net working capital 181 71 (19)
Investments (805) (457) (257)
Net cash flow 402 85 (273)

Omnitel's milestones

inbillions 1st half 2nd half 1st half 2nd half 1st half 2nd half 1st half
of lire 1996 1996 1997 1997 1998 1998 1999

EBITDA (211) (183) 23 296 526 947 1,294
Net result (259) (330) (172) 32 234 547 661
Cash flow (642) (552) (273) (40) 85 342 402