Telefonica Germany (O2), part of Spanish telecoms group Telefonica, has announced that it generated revenues of EUR5.213 billion (USD6.8 billion) in the twelve months ended December 2012, an increase of 3.5% from EUR5.036 billion in 2011, on the back of a 7.0% year-on-year rise in wireless services revenues to EUR3.152 billion. Operating income before depreciation and amortisation (OIBDA) rose 11.3% from EUR1.149 billion in 2011 to EUR1.279 billion twelve months later, while profit for the year from continuing operations was EUR308 million in 2012, compared to EUR71 million the previous year. Over the full year 2012, investments increased by 9.2% y-o-y to EUR609 million, mainly due to accelerating 4G network rollout, as well as increasing capacity in the 3G network and the development of new products and services. At the end of December 2012 Telefonica reported a total of 24.285 million customer accesses, an increase of 3.6% year-on-year, including 2.249 million fixed telephony accesses (up 9.4%), 2.376 fixed broadband subscribers (down 8.2%), 57,000 pay-TV customers (down 31.3%) and 19.3 million mobile accesses (up 5.0%). New contract customers rose by 219,500 in the fourth quarter of 2012, bringing the post-paid mobile total to 10.109 million (52.4% of all mobile accesses). ‘For the first time in the company’s history, we have over ten million contract customers,’ noted CEO Rene Schuster, adding: ‘The customer needs in the market have changed. With our O2 Blue Portfolio we meet these needs precisely.’
Meanwhile, Telefonica Germany has revealed plans to launch its urban 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in Berlin and Munich on 31 March, with a further four cities – Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Duisburg and Essen – to follow in the second quarter of the year. At the same time, the operator said it is strengthening its urban LTE network in Frankfurt, Cologne, Nuremberg, Dresden and Leipzig.