Swisscom: Stable business, less profit
Swisscom reported stable business performance in the first half of 2010. However, profit fell by 14.4 percent year-over-year to 873 million Swiss francs, due in part to legal issues at its Italian subsidiary Fastweb.
Swisscom had already announced in May that the subsidiary had to make provisions amounting to 70 million euros due to VAT proceedings in Italy. The half-year profit of the Swiss market leader was also burdened by provisions and currency effects.
Operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell by 2.4 percent to CHF 2.29 billion, according to the press release issued by SDA on Wednesday. Excluding Fastweb provisions and currency effects, EBITDA increased by 2.8 percent. Swisscom's revenue rose by 0.5 percent to CHF 5.95 billion. Calculated in euros, Fastweb generated 1.7 percent more revenue, while Swisscom alone grew by 1.9 percent.
Successful TV business
Swisscom once again recorded very strong growth in the TV business: the telecommunications group gained 85,000 new TV customers in the first half of the year, with a total of 317,000 customers watching television via Swisscom at the end of June.
In the cell phone business, the number of customers rose by 219,000 to 5.7 million. According to the press release, Swisscom was able to make up for the lower minute prices with new customers and higher volumes in mobile data traffic, among other things. The company sold 585,000 cell phones in the first half of the year, almost half of which were smartphones. Since the end of July, Swisscom has also been offering the new iPhone 4 from Apple.
Swisscom had 1.79 million broadband connections, 0.6% fewer than a year ago. Swisscom was able to provide 8.5% more connections to end customers, while the number of wholesale customers, which include resellers, fell from 130,000 to 260,000.
Operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell by 2.4 percent to CHF 2.29 billion, according to the press release issued by SDA on Wednesday. Excluding Fastweb provisions and currency effects, EBITDA increased by 2.8 percent. Swisscom's revenue rose by 0.5 percent to CHF 5.95 billion. Calculated in euros, Fastweb generated 1.7 percent more revenue, while Swisscom alone grew by 1.9 percent.
Successful TV business
Swisscom once again recorded very strong growth in the TV business: the telecommunications group gained 85,000 new TV customers in the first half of the year, with a total of 317,000 customers watching television via Swisscom at the end of June.
In the cell phone business, the number of customers rose by 219,000 to 5.7 million. According to the press release, Swisscom was able to make up for the lower minute prices with new customers and higher volumes in mobile data traffic, among other things. The company sold 585,000 cell phones in the first half of the year, almost half of which were smartphones. Since the end of July, Swisscom has also been offering the new iPhone 4 from Apple.
Swisscom had 1.79 million broadband connections, 0.6% fewer than a year ago. Swisscom was able to provide 8.5% more connections to end customers, while the number of wholesale customers, which include resellers, fell from 130,000 to 260,000.
