Telefonica and Deutsche Telecom last week reported two very different sets of 2010 financial results.
A successful diversification strategy and tight cost controls paid dividends for Telefonica, with profits up 30% in 2010 despite weakness in some European markets.
The telco generated profit of €10.1 billion ($13.9 billion) during the year, as a solid performance in Latin America and the bulk of Europe, as well as higher mobile data income, drove revenues up 7% to €60.7 billion.
Group subscriber numbers grew by 19.2 million to 287.6 million during the year, with bundled services proving popular in Spain and Latin America. The telco ended the year with 22.2 million mobile broadband users – up 63.9% on 2009 – and 17.1 million retail fixed broadband customers (up 27%).
However, the telco’s 4Q results disappointed analysts, with net profit down 45% to €2.4 billion on the back of poor performances in Spain and Ireland, FT.com noted.
In 2011, Telefonica expects to grow revenues 2% to €63.1 billion and OIBDA margin of 38%.
For Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile USA continued to be a thorn in its side, with high churn taking its toll on group profits for the year.
Profit of €3.4 billion was largely flat on 2009, as were revenues which grew less than 1% to €62.4 billion in 2010. The troubled US business offset strong performances in Europe and in managed services.