Deutsche Telekom posts Q4 loss

29 Feb 2008
00:00

(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Deutsche Telekom posted a smaller loss in its fourth quarter and said that its business was stabilizing after many quarters of declines caused by an exodus of fixed-line customers.

'2007 was not an easy year, but it was a very successful year,' CEO Rene Obermann said in a news conference after the results were released. '2008 won't be an easy year either, there's no question. Competition has an unbroken dynamic, but we've substantially improved our competitive ability in the last year, and that gives us confidence for the coming year.'

The Bonn-based company lost 757 million euros ($1.1 billion) in the October-December period, narrower than its loss of 898 million euros a year earlier.

Sales slipped to 15.8 billion euros ($23.7 billion) from 15.9 billion euros a year earlier.

The company said that excluding a big charge for reducing its work force, it had an adjusted profit of 808 million euros ($1.2 billion) for the fourth quarter, about 2% lower than the 824 million euros it earned a year earlier, but well above the 609 million euros ($916.2 million) that analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast.

The adjusted profit does not include the 1.4 billion euros ($2.1 billion) it spent in shedding jobs and paying early retirement allowances.

The company is in the midst of cutting 32,000 jobs as it works to streamline its operations in order to better compete with rivals in Europe, the US and elsewhere.

For 2007 as a whole, Deutsche Telekom's net profit fell to 569 million euros ($856 million) from 3.2 billion euros in 2006, mostly because of an increase in income taxes, according to the company.

Sales for the year rose 1.9 % to 62.5 billion euros ($94 billion) from 61.3 billion euros in 2006.


© 2008 The Associated Press

© 2008 Dialog, a Thomson business. All rights reserved

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