Deutsche Telekom AG said Thursday that its second-quarter net profit fell by 40 percent as more than half a million customers abandoned its traditional land-line offerings for cheaper rivals or switched completely to mobile phones. The company earned 608 million euros ($839 million) in the April-June period, compared with 1.02 billion euros a year earlier. It blamed the decrease not only on the loss of customers but also on higher tax expenses and greater depreciation, amortization and impairment losses. However, the figure was still better than the 563 million euros ($777 million) that analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast.
In addition, the company's pretax profit unexpectedly rose by 1.8 percent to 4.9 billion euros ($6.8 billion) from 4.82 billion euros a year earlier, beating expectations of a decline to 4.74 billion euros ($6.5 billion). Sales rose 2.9 percent to 15.6 billion euros ($21.5 billion) from 15.13 billion euros, lifted by continued growth at the company's wireless unit, T-Mobile. Analysts had expected sales of 15.5 billion euros ($21.4 billion). Sales at T-Mobile were up 10 percent to 8.65 billion euros ($11.93 billion) from 7.86 billion euros, lifted higher in part by the addition of 857,000 new customers at its growing U.S unit.
Read full story...
More...
Linear Mode
