The T-Mobile group's business continued its positive course in the third quarter of 2007. Revenue climbed 8.6 percent year-on-year to EUR 8.88 billion; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose by 9.5 percent to EUR 2.94 billion. This brought the group's EBITDA margin up to 33.1 percent. Adjusted for exchange rate effects, the increase would have been even greater: T-Mobile USA recorded an EBITDA increase in dollar terms of 15.2 percent compared with the third quarter of 2006. Measured in euros, however, this increase was only 6.7 percent.
All national companies contributed to the customer growth of 24.1 percent in the past quarter to 113.7 million customers. The main factors behind this development were the Polish company PTC, that was not consolidated at the same time last year, with 12.7 million customers and the continued strong growth at T-Mobile USA, where the customer base increased by more than 3.5 million year-on-year. Use of the mobile Internet is becoming more and more significant. The number of users of the web‚n‚walk mobile Internet service in Europe increase by more than 400,000 in a single quarter to 2.8 million.
"We have demonstrated once again that we generate first-class results in a tough market environment and despite unfavorable currency effects," declared Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile International and Member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom. "With innovations such as the iPhone, which will be launched in Germany tomorrow exclusively by T-Mobile, and the launch of MyFaves in several countries we will continue our growth and innovation story."
T-Mobile Deutschland recorded 577,000 new contract customers between January and September of this year, almost 40 percent more than in the same period last year. This was primarily attributable to the Max flat rate tariff, which once again recorded a considerable customer growth: At the end of September a total of 811,000 customers were on this rate. T-Mobile recorded a drop in revenue in the third quarter of 2007 of 3.0 percent year-on-year to EUR 2.06 billion. The 13.0 percent drop in EBITDA to EUR 777 million is primarily attributable to price decline on the intensely competitive German mobile communications market.
T-Mobile UK recorded increases in revenues and profit in the third quarter. While revenue increased by 7.4 percent to EUR 1.25 billion, EBITDA rose by 12.0 percent to EUR 365 million. As a result, the EBITDA margin was 29.2 percent. The total number of customers exceeded 17 million, in particular due to the increase of 9.5 percent in the contract customer segment in the prior year. The successful customer acquisition for the Flext rate plan continues. The number of Flext customers has doubled compared with the end of September 2006 to 2 million.
Other national companies contributed to the growth story as well. Highlights include contract customer growth of 21.2 percent at the Polish company PTC. The Czech subsidiary T-Mobile CZ increased the number of its customers in this lucrative segment by more than 30 percent. T-Mobile CZ also recorded double-digit growth rates in revenue and EBITDA in the third quarter.
T-Mobile groups increases revenue, customer base and profitability further in the third quarter of 2007
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