Telecom Italia posted its results as of September 30, 2015. The group closed the first nine months of 2015 with consolidated turnover of 14.9 billion euros, down 6.9% on the first nine months of 2014 (-3.9% in organic terms).
Article continues below
EBITDA comes to 5.6 billion euros, down 14.8% on the first nine months of 2014 (-13% in organic terms) and suffers the negative impact of non-recurring charges for a total of 460 million euros. Without these, the organic change in EBITDA would have been -4.8%.
EBIT comes to 2.8 billion euros, recording a downturn of 17.5% on the first nine months of 2014 (-16.1% in organic terms), affected negatively by non-recurring net charges for a total of 124 million euros, without which the organic change to EBIT would have been -9.4%. Period profits attributable to parent company shareholders were 362 million euros (985 million euros during the first nine months of 2014).
In addition to net non-recurring charges, they also suffered the negative impact of the bond buyback transactions carried out during the first part of the year and some items of a purely accounting and valuation nature. In the absence of these impacts the profits of the first nine months of 2015 would have been over 1 billion euros.
The domestic market, in the first nine months of 2015, confirmed and improved the gradual recovery in the turnover compared to the previous quarters, thanks to the attenuation of the dynamic of contraction of traditional services and the development of innovative ones.
In particular, the Mobile segment recorded a return to a positive position with revenues of the third quarter 2015 up 1.5% on the same period of 2014, supported by the greater penetration of mobile internet and a holding firm of the market share.
Revenues from mobile services record a decline of 1.5% during the third quarter 2015 as compared with one year ago, showing a recovery of approximately 1 pp with respect to the second quarter 2015.
In the Fixed segment, the revenue recovery trend was supported by positive growth in broadband ARPU, progressive growth in ADSL customers, with premium bundle/flat offers and the development of ICT services. Revenues from fixed services show a decline of 1.8% during the third quarter 2015, slightly better than the drop shown in the second quarter 2015 (-1.9%).
In Brazil Tim Brasil has substantially maintained its market share in the Mobile segment, significantly increasing its postpaid customer base.
At the same time, a worsening trend is seen in turnover, due to acceleration of the phenomenon of migrating from traditional voice/SMS services to innovative-IP solutions, and a further reduction in mobile termination rates (MTR) in force since the end of February 2015 and, finally, a significant reduction of turnover from handsets sales.
The negative dynamic in mobile revenues was partly mitigated by growth in the turnover of the Fixed segment, in particular in the business wholesale segment of the subsidiary Intelig and thanks to the Broadband segment of TIM Live. Despite the decline in turnover, the efficiency drives and initiatives to cut costs have allowed TIM Brasil to recover around 4 pp in profitability during the third quarter 2015. ■