News
Spanish incumbent reports higher full-year revenue on continued fixed, mobile data uptake.
Telefonica on Friday announced it swung to a fourth-quarter loss due to a one-off charge related to staff cuts in Spain.
The Spanish incumbent lost €1.83 billion in the three months to 31 December, compared to a €303 million profit a year earlier, thanks to €2.9 billion worth of costs stemming from its voluntary redundancy programme in its home market.
Revenues remained flat year-on-year at €11.88 billion, while operating income before depreciation and amortisation (OIBDA) fell 88.1% to €401 million.
"Fourth quarter results were affected by the depreciation of Latin American currencies against the euro, particularly the Brazilian real, the Venezuelan bolivar, the Colombian peso and the Argentine peso. Thus, the evolution of exchange rates deducted 9.1 percentage points from revenue performance and 11.8 percentage points from OIBDA growth," Telefonica said, in a statement.
The impact was offset partially by the contribution of pay-TV company DTS and Brazilian fixed-line player GVT.
Net debt stood at €49.92 billion, up from €45.09 billion in Q4 2014.
For the full year, Telefonica’s revenue increased to €47.22 billion from €43.46 billion, driven by the continued growth in uptake of high-speed mobile and fixed data services. OIBDA fell 17.2% year-on-year to €11.41 billion due mainly to the aforementioned redundancy costs.
For 2016, Telefonica has forecast revenue growth of more than 4% on 2015, and a stable OIBDA margin. It announced a dividend of 0.75 euros per share subject to the successful sale of O2 UK.
"In 2016, growth and data monetisation will accelerate, while we maximise the efficiencies from integration and simplification, and we boost our innovation and big data capabilities," said Telefonica CEO César Alierta, in a statement.
