Telecom operator Telefonica Capex (capital expenditure) rose 6.7 percent to $5.18 billion (€3.903 million) in the first half of 2013.
The Capex included €834 million relating to the acquisition of spectrum; in the UK (€671 million) and Uruguay (€24 million) in the first quarter and in Spain (€65 million), the UK (€47 million) and Brazil (€28 million) in the second quarter.
Telefonica’s strategy is to focus on reassigning resources to growth and transformation activities (84 percent of the total), leveraging on the efficiencies achieved in areas such as IT, procurement, improvement of quality indices and churn reduction.
Telefonica Latin America
Telefonica Latin America’s Capex reached €1.716 billion mainly due to the improvement of the network to provide innovative services such as the launch of 4G in Brazil, and outlay for increasing broadband speeds and improving the pay TV service.
Brazil
Capex reached €742 million, mainly to cover growing demand of data in the country, with the expansion and the increase of the capacity of both mobile and fixed network as well as to continue deploying the new 4G network.
Argentina
Capex rose 58.2 percent to €234 million in the first half, reflecting the company’s commitment to strengthen its leadership in quality, especially in fixed and mobile broadband services.
Chile
Capex increased 43.4 percent to €208 million, and was mainly underpinned by the development and improvement of the quality of fixed and mobile network.
Peru
Capex rose 2.7 percent to €128 million. It remained focused on continuing with the expansion and improvement of the network quality and the development of new services to maintain a level of service that is market benchmark.
Colombia
Capex rose 23 percent to €108 million. Telefonica continues to pull for Colombia as a market with strong growth potential and continues to focus investments on improving fixed broadband services, mobile data and network quality.
Mexico
Capex reached €75 million in the commercial repositioning of the company, with a particular focus on improving the distribution channel, as well as increasing the capacity and coverage of the 3G network and the rollout of the 4G network.
Venezuela
Capex rose 4.2 percent to €116 million, mainly due to investments in deploying capacity and 3G coverage following the acquisition of additional spectrum in the third quarter of 2012, and investment in the transmission network and upgrading the technology platform
Europe
Capex stood at €2,115 million and includes the spectrum acquisition in the UK (€717 million) and the license spectrum extension in Spain (€65 million). Capex was 13.7 percent lower year-on-year, reflecting the prioritization in investment allocation, the efficiencies from the network sharing agreements and the ongoing investments to foster growth areas (fiber, 3G and 4G mobile networks).
Spain
Capex decreased 20.3 percent to €627 million due to ongoing prioritization in the allocation of investments and the improvements in quality indices and complaints which allowed total investment to be reduced while at the same to continue developing the fiber roll out.
UK
Capex dipped 2.5 percent to €1,071 million excluding spectrum acquisition in on the back of the elimination of investments in the fixed network after its disposal and despite the increased investments in the joint deployment of LTE.
Germany
Capex rose 9.4 percent to €296 million, supporting future growth with accelerated investments in the development of the LTE network.
Czech Republic
Capex rose 1.5 percent to €86 million as the company directed most of its investment into growth areas, focusing on capacity and quality of mobile broadband network in Czech Republic.
Telefonica’s revenues increased 0.5 percent to €28.56 billion in H1 2013.
Net income dipped 0.9 percent to €2.056 billion.
Telefonica Group’s customer base reached 317.3 million users, up 2 percent. Out of this, more than 78 percent are mobile users.
Mobile broadband accesses stood at 63.3 million at the end of June, posting the largest year-on-year growth since the second quarter of 2012 (+41 percent), almost 7 percentage points higher than the first quarter and increasing its penetration rate up to 25 percent of mobile accesses (+7 percentage points year-on-year).
Mobile data revenues rose 9.6 and accounted for 36.4 percent of mobile service revenues in the year (up 3 percent compared with the first half of 2012). Non-SMS data revenues growth ramped up sequentially to 22.1 percent year-on-year in organic terms (+22.0 percent in the half year) and now account for 63 percent of total data revenues.
