More customers abandoning their traditional fixed-line telephones sent Deutsche Telekom's third-quarter profit sliding, an Associated Press report said.
The Associated Press report said the Bonn-based company earned 259 million euros ($381.3 million) in the July-September period, down nearly 87% from 1.96 billion euros a year earlier as the company failed to staunch a decline in traditional phone line subscribers.
The quarterly slide in profit was its sixth in a row, the report said.
But Deutsche Telekom's pretax earnings rose 3.8% to 4.9 billion euros ($7.21 billion) from 4.7 billion euros a year earlier, while its adjusted net profit rose to 1.06 billion euros ($1.56 billion) from 990 million euros, the report said.
The reprt further quoted CEO Rene Obermann as saying that the company still expected to meet its goals for 2007, despite the profit decline. 'We are fully on track to meet our targets for 2007,' he said.
Sales rose 1.4% 15.7 billion euros ($23.11 billion) from 15.48 billion euros a year ago, as customers flocked to its cell phone unit, T-Mobile, both in Europe and the US, a key market where the company is expanding, the report said.