The Swisscom Group fulfilled its expectations, with revenue rising 2.5% to CHF 14.5 billion (EUR 9.88 billion), EBITDA remaining stable at CHF 4.4 billion, and EBIT (before exceptional items) up 7.7%. In spite of the continuing difficult environment Switzerland's leading telecoms company expects operating income (EBITDA) for fiscal 2003 to remain unchanged. In 2002, as in the previous year, net income was influenced by an impairment charge of CHF 702 million booked against the goodwill of debitel (2001: CHF 1,130 million). debitel was revalued on the basis of a value of EUR 10 per share. The impairment resulted from a further decline in future expected growth in the mobile communications market. Fixnet reported slightly lower revenue from external customers of CHF 4,888 million in 2002. Revenue from access rose by 2.2% thanks to the growing number of ISDN accesses and an increase in the monthly charge for ISDN from August 1, 2001. The number of ADSL accesses at December 31, 2002 was 195,220 an increase of 484.9% compared with 33,379 at the end of 2001. Mobile increased revenue from third parties by 4.1% year-on-year to CHF 3,255 million. The customer base for voice traffic was further expanded, resulting in a 3.7% increase in revenue. Revenue from data communications rose 24.5% due to the ongoing success of SMS. While strong volume growth was recorded for the GPRS offerings (e.g. MMS (multimedia messaging services) and mobile solutions) launched in 2002, this will impact revenue only in the course of 2003. The number of mobile customers on December 31, 2002 was 3.6 million compared with 3.37 million the year before, which means an increase by 6.9%. With a net debt of CHF 642 million and a year-end equity ratio of 43%, Swisscom's financial position remains extremely sound.
