Telefonica has indicated that it will not increase its Capex in 2019 as against €8.119 billion in 2018.
Telefonica said it will maintain the same Capex to sales ratio of 15 percent in the current year despite its plans for 5G investment.

Capex of Telefonica for January-December fell 6.6 percent to €8,119 million thanks to focus on the transformation of networks and on improving quality and customer experience.

The Group’s FTTx/cable coverage reached 82.7m premises passed. It has 21.3 million FTTH connections in Spain, 9.4 million FTTx/cable in Hispam (+37 percent) and 19.8 million in Brazil. Connected accesses increased by 21 percent to 13.2 million. More than 44 percent of broadband customers enjoy connection speeds above 50 Mbps.

Telefonica LTE coverage reached 76 percent. Telefonica has 94 percent LTE coverage in Europe and 70 percent in Latin America. LTE traffic already accounted for 65 percent of total traffic.

Capex in 2018

Telefonica Spain Capex reached €1.719 billion (–5.1 percent), falling for the second year in a row, due to the lower pace in deployment of the 4G network and efficiencies.

Telefonica Germany Capex was €966 million (+1.7 percent), driven by LTE rollout and the network integration.

Telefonica UK Capex was €1.464 billion (+7.1 percent) due to investment in network capacity and customer experience. It spent €588 million for spectrum in April 2018.

Telefonica Brazil Capex reached €1.910 billion (+2.4 percent) due to the expansion of the 4G network to 3,100 cities or 88 percent of the population and the deployment of the fibre and IPTV network.

Telefonica Hispam Sur Capex was €1.116 billion (+8 percent) for the deployment of fibre and 4G coverage and launch of Pay TV service in Argentina.

Telefonica Hispam Norte Capex was €668 million (–26.8 percent) mainly driven by fixed and mobile network expansion.

Telefonica said its digitalization program, the deployment of technology and the review of our processes, has assisted in achieving €300 million plus savings in 2018.

Telefonica has 356.2 million customers including 117.4 million LTE customers (+20 percent) and 123.8 million mobile contract customers.

FTTx/cable accesses reached 13.2 million (+21 percent) and represent 61 percent of fixed broadband accesses, while pay TV accesses reached 8.9 million (+5 percent).

Telefonica revenue 

Telefonica reported revenue of €48.693 billion (+2.4 percent) on the back of 1.3 percent rise in service revenues, 18.5 percent increase in handset sales and 3.4 percent rise in business revenue to €9.62 billion and 24 percent growth in digital services revenue to €6.79 billion in 2018.

Telefonica’s operating expenses were €9.56 billion (+0.9 percent) in October-December and €33.955 billion (–7.6 percent) in January-December.

Baburajan K