Deutsche Telekom results: T-Mobile USA in recovery

Deutsche Telekom’s results for the first quarter of the year show a decline in net profit of more than 50 per cent year on year and a 1.1 per cent reduction in revenue.

Net profit fell from €480m to €238m for the first quarter of 2012, while revenue fell to €14.4bn. Adjusted net profit fell 17 per cent year-on-year to €581m.

Despite the scale of the decline, CEO René Obermann hailed it as a “satisfying” quarter, with the group claiming that its “most important KPIs” saw a positive trend. Adjusted EBITDA remained stable at € 4.5bn in the quarter remained and its adjusted EDITDA margin stood at 31 per cent, 0.4 per cent higher than the same period a year earlier.

The firm’s US operation, T-Mobile USA, has seen revenue and profit deteriorate over the past year and was the subject of a recently failed takeover from rival AT&T. Following the breakdown of that takeover, it received €3bn in cash and a mass of AWS spectrum and is now stepping up its efforts in the market, the firm said. It added that  T-Mobile USA is on schedule to implement its new LTE network  thanks to the transfer of spectrum  and is making preparations to refarm its existing spectrum.

Revenue for the US operation increased two per cent year-on-year for the quarter, to reach €3.8bn, while adjusted EBITDA grew 12.9 per cent to €1bn. However, this was in part due to exchange rate gains made by the US dollar. In local currency, revenue decreased by 2.3 per cent, although adjusted EBITDA increased by eight per cent.

T-Mobile USA also recorded a strong adjusted EBITDA margin of 25.6 per cent, a year-on-year increase of 2.5 per cent, and gained new customers. Growth in prepay business saw the total number of customers up by 187,000 in the first quarter. The number of branded contract customers, excluding machine-to-machine, on the other hand, was down by 510,000.

“Relaunching the T-Mobile brand on the US market and significantly enlarging the sales network in the country are important steps in implementing the strategy,” the firm said in its statement.

“In addition, initiatives for cutting costs and reducing churn are having a positive impact. There was a 0.1 percentage point improvement year-on-year in branded contract customer churn, representing a 0.5 per cent improvement on the fourth quarter.”