Telecom Italia (TI) has reported consolidated revenues of EUR22.06 billion (USD28.13 billion) for the nine months ended 30 September 2012, up 1.6% year-on-year, on an organic basis. Of the total, EUR12.07 billion was derived from TI’s ‘core domestic interests’, down 5.2% y-o-y. Revenues generated by the group’s Brazilian asset TIM Participacoes (TIM Brasil) increased 3.7% to EUR5.59 billion, while Telecom Argentina weighed in with revenues of EUR2.80 million, an improvement of 20.7%. Meanwhile, EBITDA for 9M12 was EUR8.86 billion, down 3.0% y-o-y, with TI posting net income of EUR1.93 billion for the period, down EUR1.26 billion. CAPEX for the period under review amounted to EUR3.38 billion, up EUR190 million compared to the year-ago period.
Franco Bernabe, CEO of Telecom Italia, commented: ‘2012 continues to suffer from recessionary tensions in the domestic market and from an economic slowdown in Latin American countries. Despite these adverse factors, the group continues to pursue its goals of increasing revenues and preserving profits, which prove to be quite solid and among the best in this industry, thanks to efforts to continually boost our operating efficiency, allowing us to deliver on our commitment to develop next generation networks. The performance of the Domestic Business Unit is slightly better than the same period last year, thanks to the actions introduced to protect our customer base and average revenue per user (ARPU) with the development of new offers and new services. All this was accomplished in spite of the worsening economic outlook and a market characterised by powerful deflationary forces and tightening regulatory pressures. In particular, the third quarter was negatively affected by the enforcement of the new 53% lower mobile termination rates and by the introduction of new price caps for mobile roaming in Europe’.