Swisscom's net profit dropped 18% in the fourth quarter of 2005, reflecting pricing pressure and lower charges for mobile phone calls, an Associated Press report said.
According to the report, Swisscom, a spin-off of the old state-owned PTT, registered a fourth-quarter profit of only 372 million Swiss francs ($285 million) from 456 million francs ($349 million) in the same period last year.
Revenue during that period was also down by 4% to 2.43 billion francs ($1.86 billion), the report added.
Despite the weak fourth quarter, Swisscom's full-year profit jumped 27% to 2.02 billion francs ($1.55 billion) from 1.59 billion francs ($1.2 billion) in 2004, the report said.
Revenue in 2005, however, was down 3.2% to 9.73 billion francs ($7.45 billion) from 10.06 billion francs ($8.1 billion) the year before, the report further said.
According to the report, the Bern-based company said it expected a further slide in revenue this year.
The former monopoly, still the largest operator in both fixed-line and mobile telephony in Switzerland, said it would focus this year on its core business with convergent technology and business customer solutions, the report said.