According to its own statements, Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) had a “successful” start to the year. In the first three months of the 2023 financial year, group sales stagnated at around 27.8 billion euros compared to the previous year, the company announced on Thursday in Bonn.
Operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization including leasing costs (Ebitda AL) adjusted for special effects rose by almost 1 percent to 10.0 billion euros. The operating profit fell by 19 percent to 5 billion euros, the pre-tax result by 30 percent to 3.7 billion euros. If you only look at the continued divisions, the net result even fell by 36 percent to 2.7 billion euros.
But the sale of a majority stake in the radio tower subsidiary nearly quadrupled net income for the quarter to €15.4 billion. Adjusted for this and other special effects, net profit fell by a good 12 percent to almost 2 billion euros due to higher interest expenses for the group debt. it was further said. At the end of the quarter, the Group’s long-term financial liabilities were more than EUR 96 billion, EUR 3.7 billion less than a year earlier.
“value created”
Telekom boss Tim Höttges is confident on Thursday morning. “Now our figures show how the Funkturm transaction created value for Deutsche Telekom,” says Höttges. In the summer of 2022, he engineered the sale of 51 percent of the infrastructure subsidiary GD Towers to US investors.
Telekom Germany contributes 6.1 billion to the total turnover. In Germany, service sales rose by 2.4 percent to 5.4 billion euros. Telekom gained 74,000 new customers in the fixed network and 274,000 new customers across all brands in mobile communications. Competitor Telefónica Deutschland lost around 1,600 customers in the same period, but was able to increase service revenue by four percent.
US subsidiary pays in
The largest source of revenue in the group is T-Mobile USA. The US subsidiary contributes EUR 18.2 billion to group sales, of which EUR 14.5 billion is service sales. In the USA, Telekom was able to gain 1.3 million new contract customers and is thus still ahead of its competitors Verizon and AT&T. The company describes Internet access via mobile communications (Fixed Wireless Access), which 3.2 million customers use at T-Mobile USA, as a “great success”.
Shortly after the end of the first quarter, DTAG secured a majority stake in the US network operator. Since then, more than 50 percent of T-Mobile USA has belonged to Deutsche Telekom.
From DTAG’s point of view, business with major customers was positive at the start of the year. T-Systems was able to increase revenue in the first quarter by 4.5 percent to EUR 946 million. The Ebitda AL rose by 4.6 percent to 75 million euros.
For the current year, CEO Höttges has now set a slightly higher target for operating profit. The Ebitda AL should rise to around 40.9 billion euros. Around 40.8 billion euros were previously expected. The stock exchange took good note of this.
(vbr)
