Net earnings at Germany’s Deutsche Telekom down to $626 million in 2nd quarter

Deutsche Telekom Q2 earnings slip 9 percent

BERLIN — German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG said Thursday that its second-quarter profit fell 8.8 percent and revenues slipped as the company deconsolidated its British cell phone unit T-Mobile UK.

Deutsche Telekom, based in Bonn, said it had net profit of euro475 million ($626 million) for the April-June period — down from euro521 million a year earlier.

Second-quarter revenues slipped 4.4 percent to euro15.53 billion from euro16.24 billion.

T-Mobile U.K. became part of a joint venture with France Telecom, Everything Everywhere, on April 1.

Chief Executive Rene Obermann said that “we can once again confirm our guidance” for the full year. “We have achieved one of our key goals, that of making our business in Germany competitive again,” he added in a statement.

The company said it stemmed a decline in revenue in its home market, with revenue there just below the previous year’s level at euro6.2 billion in the second quarter. Adjusted pretax profit rose 2.4 percent to euro2.4 billion.

Telekom said it sees growing indications of stabilization at its American cell phone unit, T-Mobile USA.

The number of customers with contracts rose for the first time since last year’s second quarter, the company said. T-Mobile had 33.6 million customers at the end of June — up from 33.5 million a year earlier.

Still, Telekom said the total number of customers was down 93,000 from this year’s first quarter because of declines in the prepaid segment. U.S. net revenue was up 6.9 percent on the year at euro4.19 billion.

Deutsche Telekom reported first-half net profit of euro1.24 billion, compared with a loss of euro603 million a year earlier. Revenues slipped 2.5 percent to euro31.34 billion from euro32.14 billion.