Telecom Italia, which trades under the TIM brand in Italy and Brazil, has reported a 6.9% drop in revenues for the nine months to 30 September 2015, with sales falling to EUR14.88 billion (USD16.87 billion) so far this year, from EUR15.97 billion in 9M2014. The firm said that organic turnover – which excludes one-off items and organisational changes – was down 3.9% year-on-year. Although the domestic business unit showed a decline in revenues of 1.8%, the results were dragged down by TIM Brasil which saw turnover drop 19.9% to EUR3.70 billion. EBITDA for the first nine months of 2015 amounted to EUR5.62 billion, down 14.8% from EUR6.59 billion in the corresponding period of 2014, while net profits fell from EUR985 million to EUR362 million. Excluding the effects of the EUR460 million in one-off charges, EBITDA dropped 4.8%.
In operational terms, TIM Italy had 30.02 million mobile customers at the end of September, down from 30.37 million a year earlier, while the number of retail broadband connections climbed from 6.93 million at end-September 2014 to 6.98 million twelve months later. Monthly ARPU for mobile services was stable at EUR12.50, as broadband ARPU rose from EUR20.00 to EUR20.74. TIM Brasil, meanwhile, saw subscriber numbers fall sharply in the year to 30 September 2015, from 74.88 million to 72.57 million, with ARPU dropping from EUR17.40 to EUR16.40 over the same period.