Telefonica Deutschland slowed its drop in revenues to 3.4 percent in the second quarter, for a total EUR 1.77 billion, while growth in adjusted EBITDA accelerated to 5 percent, to EUR 472 million. The OIBDA margin improved 2 percentage points to 26.7 percent, driven by cost savings. The company said it reduced costs by EUR 40 million in the quarter.
The net result was still a loss of EUR 40 million, versus a profit of EUR 252 million a year ago, due to write-downs related to the integration of E-Plus and network consolidation. Capital expenditure increased 6.9 percent to EUR 226 million due to the network consolidation and LTE expansion, leaving free cash flow of EUR 69 million.
The German operator maintained its outlook for the full year, for mobile service revenue flat to slightly lower excluding regulatory effects, after a 0.5 percent fall in the first half. Annual adjusted OIBDA is expected to grow in the mid single digits, after an increase of 3.6 percent in H1, and capex will drop slightly to around EUR 1 billion.
Mobile service revenue still fell 3.0 percent in Q2 to EUR 1.318 billion, and wireline revenues were down 11.2 percent to EUR 217 million. Telefonica said that excluding regulatory effects, mobile service revenue was down only 0.4 percent from a year earlier, supported by growth in data revenues.
The number of mobile customers increased by 519,000 in the three months to 45.194 million. Postpaid customers grew by 197,000 to 20.905 million, and prepaid users were up by 322,000 to 24.289 million. ARPU edged up to EUR 9.7 from EUR 9.6 in Q1, while churn was stable at 1.9 percent.
The number of LTE customers rose 53 percent to 14.4 million. Telefonica said postpaid customers on the O2 brand with a LTE plan were consuming 48 percent more data than a year ago, at an average 2 GB per customer per month.
In the fixed market, Telefonica lost 7,000 broadband customers in the quarter, for a total 2.082 million at the end of June. VDSL customers rose by 88,000 over the same period to 960,000.
