Belgacom has reported third quarter earnings just below market expectations and repeated its outlook for 2008 reports Reuters.
The former state monopoly said core profit fell 4.7% to €503 million. Reuters polled 11 analysts to establish that their average expectation had been €502 million.
Third-quarter sales were down 2.6% at €1.47 billion, falling short of analysts' expectations of €1.49 billion, and net profit fell 7.3% to €215 million, against an expected figure of €216 million.
Reuters reported that the group said the positive contribution of the acquisition of Tele2 Tango, the Luxembourg mobile phone arm of Sweden Tele2 which it acquired in June, as well as growing TV and data revenue were eliminated by a negative regulatory impact of €118 million.
Belgacom repeated its forecast for a revenue decline of around 2% and an EBITDA margin of 33-34% in 2008.