Telefónica, the Spanish-based telco, reported a 30.8 per cent increase in full-year 2011 net profit, helped by strong subscriber growth in its wireless businesses.
The company unveiled profits for the year of €10.17 billion, up from €7.78 billion in 2009. However, for the last three months of 2010, the company said net income fell by more than 45 per cent year-over-yearto €1.33 billion, largely due to rising economic problems in its home territory.
Commenting on the results for Telefónica Europe, CEO Matthew Key said that its revenues increased 12.7 per cent to €15.25 billion, with its mobile customer base to 56.3 million subscribers--a 14.3 per cent increase over 2009.
"Telefónica Europe delivered strong financial and operating performance in 2010 with continued expansion of our customer base and the fast growth of mobile data revenues," Key said, as reported by Fonecast. "Significantly, our mobile broadband customers increased 38 per cent y-o-y in 2010, resulting in a customer base of over 9 million - or 20 per cent of the total mobile base (15 per cent in 2009).
As an illustration of this, Key said that 70 per cent of new postpaid customers in the UK in 2010 were smartphone subscribers. O2 UK's customer base in the UK reached 22.2 million at the end of 2010, excluding those managed by the MVNO, Tesco Mobile.
Commenting on the performance of its mobile division, Telefónica said it now had a total of over 220 million customers, an increase of nearly 9 per cent over 2009, helped by a fast-growing Brazilian operation that provided some 8.5 million net subscriber additions in 2010.
By contrast, while Movistar Espana recorded an increase in mobile customers to 24.3 million, up 3.3 per cent from the end of 2009. However, the operator said that its 2010 Spain revenue was down 5 per cent at € 18.7 billion. The company said that its results were hurt by the economic downturn, 20 per cent unemployment and government austerity measure in Spain.
For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this AP article
- see this Telegeography article
- see this The Fonecast article
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