DT blames dodgy results on toll roads

Profits might have plummeted but that hasn’t stopped Deutsche Telekom from raising its full-year outlook as subscriber gains in the US business drags the rest of the group forward.

Total revenues for the last three months stood at €18.367, down 2.8% year-on-year, though profit nose-dived to €495, a decrease of 43%. The team has blamed this drop on a one-off payment of €600 million to the German government, settling a long-running legal dispute over the delayed implementation of a truck toll system DT designed with Daimler. Without the fine, profits would have increased by 3%.

“We remain firmly on track,” said CFO Thomas Dannenfeldt. “The trends in Germany and the United States are positive. At our European subsidiaries, we are again posting sustained growth.”

Looking at revenues in the individual markets, Germany declined by 0.9%, while the US accounted for a drop of 4.5%. Across the rest of Europe, revenues rose by 1.3%, while the Systems Solutions business unit increased by 42.2%.

The main success of the business here is in the US, T-Mobile US is continuing to make positive steps forward stealing market share from competitors, and also the convergence strategy across Europe. Across the last twelve months, the number of customers opting for convergent products rose 48% to 2.7 million.

The hot topic for investors and industry onlookers remains to be the merger with US competitor Sprint. No new information has been offered, though the sluggish regulatory process might be a tricky one. Similar deals have of course been rejected by watchdogs in years gone, though with the unpredictable nature of the Trump administration, who knows which direction it could go.

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