Swisscom satisfied with third quarter results
Swisscom continued to perform well in the third quarter but revenues will slow in the final three months of the year.
Operating income before interest, tax and depreciation rose 7.8 per cent to SFr3.44 billion ($2.07 billion) in the first nine months of the year.
Swisscom, which is Switzerland’s largest telecommunications group, said in a statement on Thursday that “in a stable market environment” revenue rose by 2.2 per cent year-on-year to SFr10.61 billion.
Swisscom spokeswoman Pia Rogers told swissinfo that they were happy with current state of the business.
“The Swisscom Group continued to perform well in the third quarter as revenues and operating income rose,” explained Rogers.
The company said that high net income of SFr5.75 billion was mainly the result of one-off transactions, but the company still anticipates a slight increase in revenue for 2001 as a whole.
“Net debts have been turned into a net cash position during the course of 2001. At September 30, 2001, Swisscom reported net funds of SFr2.82 billion,” Swisscom said in a statement.
Lower prices
In its fixed line business Swisscom saw revenue from telephony traffic fall by 7 per cent to SFr823 million principally due to lower tariffs.
Compared with the previous year, national telephony traffic volumes fell by 7.1per cent while international telephony traffic rose by 4.3 per cent.
Revenue from value added services increased by 35.3 per cent to SFr230 million thanks to an increase in Internet traffic.
Revenue from Swisscom’s mobile business rose year-on-year by 15.2 per cent to SFr2.33 million. The company said that the Swiss mobile market continued to grow, albeit at a considerably slower pace than in the record year of 2000.
Outlook
The company did warn that the positive development in operating income through the third quarter would not be sustained throughout the fourth quarter of 2001.
Growth in the group’s mobile business and its German mobile subsidiary debitel will slow as a result of the high levels of market penetration in mobile communications.
“There will be higher expenses in the fourth quarter of 2001 including for marketing,” the company added in its statement.
Swisscom anticipates a marginal increase in revenue for the 2001 financial year.
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