Swisscom slightly increased its annual EBITDA target after a solid performance in the first half of the year. The company still expects moderate growth in revenue this year, but EBITDA is now estimated at over CHF 4.4 billion, versus CHF 4.35 billion previously. In the first six months, revenue rose 1.9 percent year-on-year to CHF 5.70 billion, and EBITDA was up 3.8 percent to CHF 2.18 billion. The Swiss activities posted sales up 1.3 percent to CHF 4.15 billion, while Fastweb grew sales, excluding hubbing, by 0.9 percent to EUR 792 million.
Net profit fell 1.6 percent to CHF 806 million, amid an increase in depreciation, finance costs and taxes. Swisscom maintained its budget for CHF 2.4 billion in capital expenditure this year, after spending CHF 1.12 billion in H1. The increase in capex led to a small drop of 3.5 percent in operating cash flow to CHF 830 million in the first half.
In Switzerland, revenue growth slowed to 0.2 percent in the second quarter to CHF 2.11 billion, and EBITDA grew 1.6 percent to CHF 902 million. The growth came largely from more bundled subscriptions, which reached 1.11 million customers at the end of June, up 25 percent from a year earlier and 50,000 more than in March. The customer and volume increase helped offset price erosion due in part to regulatory cuts. In total Swisscom added 66,000 revenue-generating units in the three months to reach 12.2 million at the end of the period, an increase of 2.7 percent year-on-year.
The growth was mainly in TV and mobile, which added respectively 39,000 and 31,000 customers in Q2. Mobile was led by 39,000 new postpaid customers, and 58 percent of the mobile base was using the Infinity unlimited plans at the end of the quarter. Retail broadband lines also grew by 22,000 in the quarter, while fixed lines were down by 26,000 compared to March.
