Telecom Italia has lowered its full-year outlook due to slower sales at its units in Brazil and Germany. Mobile operator TIM Brasil has cut its sales growth outlook to 7 percent, from an estimate of 9 percent in May, while Germany's Hansenet now forecasts annual sales of EUR 1.2 billion, down from an earlier outlook for EUR 1.3 billion. Telecom Italia puts group sales now at EUR 30.4-30.5 billion, versus a previous estimate of EUR 31 billion, while the EBITDA margin forecast drops half a point to 38.0 percent. In the first half of the year, Telecom Italia reported revenues of EUR 14.84 billion, down 3.3 percent from a year earlier. EBITDA declined 12.6 percent to EUR 5.55 billion, giving a margin of 37.3 percent versus 41.3 a year ago. The result was hurt by lower revenues from the 3 Italia roaming deal, as well as one-time costs for staff reductions. Net profit fell 24 percent to EUR 1.14 billion. First-half capex reached EUR 3 billion, and Telecom Italia expects to spend EUR 5.4 billion over the full year. The company left the outlook for its domestic business unchanged, at revenues of over EUR 23 billion and an organic EBITDA margin of around 44 percent. In the first half, the Italian business posted revenues down 6.3 percent from a year ago to EUR 11.42 billion and an EBITDA margin of 43.2 percent, down 2.9 points. The decline was largely due to regulatory price cuts.
The Italian wireline business posted revenues down 6.2 percent to EUR 7.5 billion amid a continued drop in the number of access lines and fixed-mobile and long-distance traffic and prices. This was offset by growth in the broadband market, where the operator reached 7.8 million customers at the end of June, of which 6.6 million were retail. Retail customer additions slowed to 23,000 in Q2 from 114,000 in Q1 of this year. Around 25 percent of broadband customers also took VoIP services, while the IPTV base grew by 100,000 from the start of the year to 180,000 users at the end of June. Italian mobile operator TIM recorded half-year revenues of EUR 4.7 billion, down 5.0 percent from a year eago due to regulatory price cuts and the 3 Italia agreement. The drop was due to lower voice revenues, while value-added services rose 13.2 percent on the back of growth in broadband services to around 1.6 million regular users. The number of mobile customers reached 35.796 million at the end of June, down by 134,000 from March. ARPU improved to EUR 20.1 in the second quarter from EUR 19.2 in Q1.
The European broadband division generated revenues of EUR 642 million in the first six months of the year, up 25.4 percent from a year earlier. EBITDA fell by EUR 9 million to EUR 119 million, giving a margin of 18.5 percent. The company counted over 2.5 million access lines at the end of June.