Telekom gets phone boost

May 23, 2001
Web posted at: 1111 GMT

LONDON (CNN) -- Europe's biggest phone company Deutsche Telekom says the strength of its traditional telephone business boosted its first quarter figures.

DT's adjusted final figures show its net loss narrowing from the fourth quarter to 358 million from 975 million. Its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were 3.6 billion.

The figures were slightly higher than analysts' expectations of 3.4 billion.

Deutsche Telekom was up 1.9 percent at 27.38 in midday trading in Frankfurt.

EBITDA for the company's mobile unit, T-Mobile, rose to 590 million from 350 million in the same period last year. Its traditional voice business, T-Com, showed a pretax profit of 947 million compared to 81 million.

DT is considering listing T-Mobile separately, but analysts expect it to delay any such plans in the current depressed climate for telecoms stocks.

The company is under pressure to reduce its 60 billion debt mountain by selling non-core assets, including a 10 percent stake in U.S. phone company Sprint and its property portfolio.

Its Internet service provider T-Online, which was reported to be interested in the Excite@home portal business on Wednesday,  made a pretax loss of 27 million in the first quarter compared to a profit of 17 million a year earlier.

T-Online, Excite in talks – May 23, 2001
Telekom posts loss – Apr. 24, 2001
Deutsche Telekom

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