Telefonica Germany had a total of 25.2 million customer accesses at end-2013. The mobile base reached 19.401 million, including 10.3 million post-paid and 9.1 million pre-paid mobile customers. This represents a net loss of 175,000 customers compared to September 2013, but 101,000 more customers than at the end of 2012. ARPU was EUR 12.50 in Q4 2013, down 8 percent from EUR 13.60 in Q4 2012, with post-paid ARPU down 9.2 percent to EUR 19.10 and pre-paid ARPU down 7.1 percent to EUR 5.1. Data ARPU was EUR 6.2 in Q4.
Mobile data revenues, including SMS, reached EUR 1.44 billion in 2013, up 3.7 percent from 2012. Non-SMS data revenues increased by 21.7 percent in 2013, with SMS accounting for 33.5 percent of total data revenues. Smartphone penetration reached 31.4 percent at end-2013, up 5 percentage points year-on-year. Smartphone penetration for O2 consumer post-paid customers was 68.8 percent. The adoption rate of LTE-enabled handsets from new and existing customers grew significantly to account for 80 percent of total sales in Q4.
The company also had 2.125 million fixed telephony accesses at end-2013, down 5.5 percent from a year earlier and 20,000 less than in Q3 2013. Fixed broadband customers declined 5.6 percent over the year and by 22,000 compared to Q3 to 2.244 million.
In the fourth quarter, the operator recorded a 6.3 percent fall in wireless service revenues to EUR 743 million, while wireline sales were down 9.2 percent to EUR 297 million. Group OIBDA was still up 8.8 percent to EUR 373 million, giving a margin of 30.0 percent. Despite a 27 percent increase in capex to EUR 198 million, free cash flow was up 27 percent to EUR 156 million.
Telefonica Germany's total revenues reached EUR 4.91 billion in 2013, down 5.7 percent from 2012. Excluding the impact of mobile termination rate cuts, revenues were down 3.5 percent. Mobile service revenue fell 5.2 percent year-on-year to EUR 2.99 billion, or down 1.5 percent excluding MTR cuts. Wireline revenues reached EUR 1.23 billion in 2013, a decline of 9.4 percent from 2012, on a lower retail DSL base (mitigated by an increasing uptake of VDSL) and a stable evolution of the retail DSL ARPU.
OIBDA fell by 3.3 percent in 2013 to EUR 1.24 billion, with the OBDA margin up 0.6 percentage points to 25.2 percent. Capex increased 9.4 percent to EUR 666 million in 2013. LTE network coverage reached over 40 percent of the population by end-2013. Telefonica increased free cash flow, before dividends, by 3.4 percent to EUR 699 million over the full year.
Telefonica said it still expects to close the acquisition of E-Plus by mid-year, pending clearance from the European Commission for the transaction.
