Telecom Italia revises forecasts

Fixed and mobile carrier Telecom Italia has revised its outlook for the current year as its Brazilian and German operations fare worse than expected.

The operator recorded a 24 per cent slide in net income for the first half of the year, with profit falling to Eur1.14bn, compared to Eur1.5bn in the first half of 2007.

Revenues dropped 3.3 per cent to Eur14.8bn on the back of extra regulatory and restructuring charges.

Commenting on the results, group CEO Franco Bernabe said: “Encouraging signs of growth were in evidence in fixed and mobile innovative services. The mobile broadband-enabled customer base has almost doubled in size, and new media service adoption is expanding at impressive rates. Broadband revenues are matching our high growth expectations thanks to a customer base quality enhancement strategy (75 per cent of customers are now on flat rate packages).”

However, Bernabe said that Brazil and Germany have “suffered unexpected setbacks as a result of the competitive conditions on the local markets.” As a result, Telecom Italia has made changes to the management teams at TIM Brasil and Hansenet.

The company said that Mobile Brazil organic revenue growth is forecast to exceed 7 per cent, compared with previous figures of 12 per cent. While Hansenet revenues are forecast to exceed Eur1.2bn, compared with the previous figure of around Eur1.3bn.

Group revenues for the year are now forecast to reach between Eur30.4bn and Eur30.5bn, compared with the previous target of around Eur31bn.