Telefonica announced its revenue, Capex, EBITDA and Opex during the third quarter of 2018.
Telefonica posted revenue of €11.699 billion (–8.3 percent), operating expenses of €7.980 billion (–10.2 percent), operating income (OIBDA) of €4.038 billion (–1.4 percent) and net profit of €1.139 billion (+35.8 percent).

Telefonica generated quarterly revenues of €3.188 billion (+0.1 percent) from Spain, €1.830 billion (–1.5 percent) from Germany, €1.721 billion (+7.9 percent) from UK, €2.345 billion (–1 percent) from Brazil, €1.315 billion (+11.2 percent) from Hispam Sur and €1.041 billion (–0.7 percent) from Hispam Norte.

Telefonica said its Capex reached €5.68 billion (+4.7 percent) and included €612 million in spectrum payments in the first nine months of 2018.

The focus of Telefonica was on the transformation of mobile networks, expansion of high-speed broadband networks and network virtualisation and quality improvement.

Telefonica’s 9-months Capex was €1.157 billion (+4.8 percent) in Spain, €740 million (+7.6 percent) in Germany, €1.202 billion (+3.0 percent) in UK, €1,422 billion (+14 percent) in Brazil, €685 million (+10.8 percent) for Hispam Sur and €297 million (–30.5 percent) for Hispam Norte.

Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, chairman of Telefonica, said: “Improved growth trends, robust and solid business third quarter and our good operating positioning in key markets allow us to upgrade our revenue growth guidance set for 2018.”

Telefonica said its mobile service revenues rose 1.2 percent and mobile data revenues grew 7.9 percent in January-September. Mobile data revenues represent 61 percent of mobile service revenues.

Telefonica Group’s access base did not grow and reached 356.3 million in September. ARPU of Telefonica rose 3.5 percent, while churn remained stable.

Telefonica has a LTE customer base of 111.5 million (+25 percent), mobile contract accesses of 121.6 million (+7 percent), FTTx/Cable user base of 12.8 million (+21 percent) and pay TV customer base of 8.8 million (+6 percent).

Telefonica’s FTTx/Cable coverage reached 81.0 million premises passed in September — 20.8 million FTTH in Spain, 9.0 million FTTx/Cable in Hispam and 19.3 million in Brazil.

LTE coverage of Telefonica stood at 75 percent at September — 92 percent in Europe and 69 percent in Latin America. LTE traffic represented 64 percent of the total traffic.

Telefonica started deploying Massive MIMO and 4.5G in Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia as part of the 5G investment strategy.

Telefonica digital

Digital service revenues account for €1.630 billion (+19.5 percent) in Q3 and €4.901 billion (+25.3 percent) in 9 months. Telefonica said it has digitalised 63 percent of processes and managed in real time, improving “time-to-market” and customer experience. Digital channel sales (28 percent of total) increased by 50 percent in overall accesses and by 73 percent in Fusion.

Spain’s Telefonica raised its revenue target for the year, boosted by a brighter outlook for its domestic market and growth in Britain, despite a fall in third-quarter core profit caused by currency volatility in Latin America, Reuters reported.

Currency turbulence in Brazil and Argentina have dented the telecoms group’s results in recent quarters, even as its dual strategy to aim for both the upper and lower ends of the Spanish market has shown signs of bearing fruit.

Baburajan K