Growing revenues and EBITDA couldn’t prevent Danish carrier TDC reporting a 44% fall in net income during Q1.
The firm’s profit of 519 million Danish Kroner (€69 million) for continuing operations was down from 927 million Kroner in Q109, due to currency fluctuations and higher depreciation and amortization costs.
Despite the decrease in net profit, the firm grew revenues 1.8% to 9.06 billion Kroner and EBITDA 8.1% to 3.3 billion Kroner. This growth was due mostly to a strong performance from its Sunrise unit in Switzerland, which alone generated revenue of 2.5 billion Kroner – up 4.5% year-on-year.
Revenues from TDC’s Nordic operations were flat on Q109, growing just 0.8% to 6.5 billion Kroner on the back of lower roaming rates and currency fluctuations.
President and CEO Henrik Poulsen said the results in Switzerland were particularly welcome, after the Swiss competition authorities blocked a merger of the unit with Orange last month.
“Fortunately, Sunrise has maintained momentum in recent months,” he said.
However, Poulsen offered no guidance on the potential impact of the block on a planned IPO of the firm, stating only that the firm is “currently reviewing our options and next steps in this process.”
Total subscriber numbers grew 4.9% to 11.7 million by end Q1, which was mostly driven by an 8% rise in mobile customers to 5.3 million across all markets.
Poulsen reiterated the firm’s guidance of 1-3% growth in revenues and 3-4% ebitda growth for the full year 2010.