Deutsche Telekom Posts Profit Surge

Deutsche Telekom, Europe's biggest telecommunications group, said Thursday that bottom-line profits surged by 60 percent in the first three months of the current year, propelled by the strong performance of its mobile phone business, particularly in the US. Deutsche Telekom said in a statement that it booked a net profit of 1.01 billion euros ($1.28 billion) in the period from January to March, a rise of 59.8 percent over the year earlier figure of 632 million euros. Pre-tax profit was up 35.8 percent at 1.619 billion euros, and earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 6.3 percent to 4.898 billion euros, the statement said. First-quarter revenues climbed by 3.5 percent to 14.376 billion euros. Revenue growth outside Germany was driven primarily by T-Mobile USA, the company said. The number of mobile customers in the US increased by 957,000 to 18.3 million at the end of March.