Deutsche Telekom's second-quarter net profit fell by 40% as more than half a million customers abandoned its traditional land-line offerings for cheaper rivals or switched completely to mobile phones, an Associated Press reports aid.
The Associated Press report said the company earned 608 million euros ($839 million) in the April-June period, compared with 1.02 billion euros ($1.39 billion) a year earlier.
It blamed the decrease not only on the loss of customers but also on higher tax expenses and greater depreciation, amortization and impairment losses, the report said.
The figure was still better than the 563 million euros ($777 million) that analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast, the Associated Press report added.
The report said in addition, the company's pretax profit unexpectedly rose by 1.8% to 4.9 billion euros ($6.8 billion) from 4.82 billion euros ($6.6 billion) a year earlier, beating expectations of a decline to 4.74 billion euros ($6.5 billion).
Sales rose 2.9% to 15.6 billion euros ($21.5 billion) from 15.13 billion euros ($20 billion), lifted by continued growth at the company's wireless unit, T-Mobile.
Analysts had expected sales of 15.5 billion euros ($21.4 billion).
Sales at T-Mobile were up 10% to 8.65 billion euros ($11.93 billion) from 7.86 billion euros ($10.7 billion), lifted higher in part by the addition of 857,000 new customers at its growing US unit.
It was the fifth consecutive quarter in which Deutsche Telekom's net profit has come in below the previous year's figure.
Sales at the company's fixed-line unit dropped 7.4% to 5.66 billion euros ($7.81 billion) from 6.11 billion euros ($8.4 billion).