Telecom Italia Group, which offers services in Italy and Brazil under the TIM brand, has reported a 3.5% drop in consolidated revenues for full-year 2016 to EUR19.04 billion (USD20.43 billion), though sales for the fourth quarter rose 5.3% year-on-year to EUR5.10 billion. The Italian firm says its domestic business registered its best result since 2007, with revenues stabilised and organic EBITDA up by more than 4% in 2016. However, there was a 12.7% y-o-y slide in sales at TIM Brasil, to EUR4.05 billion. Group EBITDA rose 14.4% for the year to 31 December 2016 to EUR8.02 billion, helped by cost-cutting measures, while fourth-quarter EBITDA climbed 5.9% to EUR2.14 billion. The group says it plans to spend around EUR11 billion in its home market over the next three years, including EUR5 billion to speed up the rollout of its ultrafast fibre broadband networks.
In operational terms, TIM Italy had 11.29 million fixed lines in service at the end of 2016, down from 11.74 million a year earlier. Fixed broadband accesses climbed 3.6% y-o-y to 9.21 million, while mobile subscriptions dropped 1.3% to 29.62 million. In Brazil, TIM saw its mobile user base fall from 66.23 million at end-2015 to 63.42 million a year later.