Telekom Austria: Net income down 14.5%

Telekom Austria, the country’s largest telecoms operator by subscribers, has posted net income of EUR82.3 million (USD116 million) for the three months ended 30 June 2009, a 14.5% year-on-year decline from the EUR96.3 million reported in 2Q08. Consolidated group revenues for the quarter fell by 6.6% from EUR1.27 billion in the second quarter of 2008 to EUR1.19 billion in the corresponding period a year later. The company attributed the drop to a decline in fixed line sales and wholesale revenue, as well as the sale of the group’s fixed line subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The company lost 12,600 fixed line customers in the second quarter of 2009, while the total of unbundled lines in service fell to 291,600 at the end of June 2009, down from 297,500 a year earlier. Fixed to mobile substitution remains the main driver of fixed line customer loss and while the fixed line business may be declining, Telekom’s mobile subsidiary, Mobilkom Austria, has seen its subscriber base grow 6.6% year-on-year to 4.6 million. Telekom ended 2Q09 with 958,400 broadband customers, a 16% rise on the total at the end of June 2008.