State-owned full-service provider Swisscom has registered a 2.4% year-on-year dip in net revenue for the first six months of 2019, booking turnover of CHF5.66 billion (USD5.8 billion) for the period compared to CHF5.81 billion last year. Swisscom’s domestic operations accounted for the bulk of the decline, with the operator attributing the fall to market saturation and falling prices across several segments. Swisscom’s Italian division on the other hand continued to expand, reporting revenue growth of 3.8% y-o-y for H1 2019. EBITDA, meanwhile, was up 4.5% y-o-y to CHF2.24 billion, although the group noted that part of the growth was due to changes in financial reporting standards, and the annual increase on a like-for-like basis would have been 0.5%. Net profit was down by 0.9% to CHF780 million, with Swisscom noting that cost control measures and growth at its Italian subsidiary helped offset the impact of lower revenue from its Swiss business.
The telco counted a total of 6.368 million mobile access lines at end-June 2019, down 1.0% y-o-y, whilst retail broadband subscriptions dipped by 0.2% over the same period to 2.024 million. In Italy, its Fastweb arm claimed a total of 1.629 million mobile users – an increase of 27.3% y-o-y – and 2.600 million fixed broadband connections (+4.0%).