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Swisscom posts revenue growth of 17.6% (Switzerland)

  • August 13th, 2008
  • 11:38 am

Swisscom, has posted it’s H1′08 earnings. Swisscom’s revenue grew by 17.6% to CHF 5.991 billion due to the acquisition of Italian broadband operator Fastweb in spring 2007.

It’s EBITDA grew by 18.9% to CHF 2.427 billion. It’s H1 profits, reduced by CHF 89 million to CHF 840 million, reason being the early termination of around 75% of the long-term leasing agreements which is already underway.

Swisscom’s mobile subscribers grew by 8.5% in the H1 to 5.2 million.

It’s revenues in Switzerland dropped 0.5 percent to CHF 4.233 billion. Revenue generated by new mobile data services (excluding SMS) increased by 32.8% to CHF 175 million in the space of a year. Apple’s iPhone 3G, is expected to ensure further growth in this area. Average revenue per user per month (ARPU) fell by 8.8 percent to CHF 52 as a result of price reductions, while the average number of minutes per user per month (AMPU) increased by 2.7 percent to 114.

   

Sicap to help Swisscom for iPhone launch(Switzerland)

  • July 28th, 2008
  • 11:31 am

Sicap to help Swisscom in preparing 3G i-phone for its launch. Its network-based billing platform will support the Swiss Operator’s prepaid offering. According to a report which says billing solution firm Sicap responded to the marketing demands of Swisscom by implementing innovative packages for i-Phone services on the operator billing platform. Sicap’s billing platform has evolved in line with network evolution and today supports real time diameter-based data rating in an all-IP network environment.

Sicap has even assisted the Swisscom packaging of 3G iPhone. Customers are offered a choice of subscription types, ranging from subscription-free service rates for pre-paid users to volume data transfer offers for avid mobile web surfers, likely to be seduced by the synching capabilities and the embedded GPS navigation tool in the device.

Why Swisscom is looking like a class act (Switzerland)

  • March 6th, 2008
  • 2:13 pm

Swisscom, the incumbent operator in Switzerland, released its full year results today. Revenues were up 14.9% year-on-year to €7,020 million (CHF 11,089 million) and EBITDA increased 18.9% to €2,850 million (CHF 4,501 million). Net income increased 29.4% to €1,309 million (CHF 2,068 million).

Comment: Swisscom has had a busy year, with the acquisition of Fastweb (Italian altnet) and the repurchase of a stake in its mobile unit - Swisscom Mobile. With these acquisitions having taken place during 2007, it is not surprising to see revenues increase year-on-year. What is more surprising is that Swisscom has managed to stay focused during this time and implement organisational changes at the company, which have led to improved profitability.

This in itself is some achievement, but Swisscom has managed something even more remarkable for a Western European incumbent and that is to generate positive customer growth across its fixed business. Swisscom has gained more broadband customers than it has lost fixed voice customers, recording 3.4% year-on-year growth in customer lines. Unfortunately, this was still not enough to stem the decline in fixed revenues, which fell 4.5% to €2,832m (CHF 4,474m), proving what a difficult task incumbent operators face in trying to keep their fixed business growth positive.

In other areas of the business, mobile revenues increased by 1% to €2,542 million  (CHF 4,015 million), and Solutions (Swisscom’s ICT business unit) revenues remained flat at €775 million (CHF 1,224 million). What is interesting with the Solutions unit is that despite the lack of revenue growth, EBITDA improved by 60% from €44 million to €71 million due to cost savings and an improved focus on higher-margin products and services. Like BT, Swisscom has placed high emphasis on ICT and is investing heavily in updating its network and providing better services for customers.

As for its outlook for 2008, Swisscom expects to see revenue growth of around 11% to €7.8 billion (CHF 12.3 billion) and EBITDA growth of around 6.5% to €3 billion (CHF 4.8 billion), which seems realistic allowing for the impact of Fastweb for a full year. In terms of strategy, Swisscom is focusing on improving customer service by opening more shops, developing its Bluewin TV proposition and scaling back in areas such as directory enquiries where demand is declining. All this seems sensible in an industry where price is becoming less of a differentiator and quality of service is key.

   

 

Swisscom ordered to offer bitstream access for 4 years (Switzerland)

  • November 23rd, 2007
  • 2:54 pm

The Swiss Federal Communications Commission (ComCom) is obliging Swisscom to provide bitstream access on the last mile for 4 years following the parliamentary recommendation. Swisscom must submit an offer with cost-based prices to rivals, as it is dominant in the market for this access variant. In 2006, the parliament decided that Swisscom had to be forced to open its last mile to its competitors via full unbundling and wholesale bitstream access, but in March of this year Swisscom declined to submit a price proposal to its competitors, because in its view it was not dominant in the market. This drove TDC subsidiary and Swiss telecommunications operator sunrise to submit an access application to ComCom, with a view to obtaining a decision in principle on the question of market dominance. ComCom came to the conclusion that Swisscom is market-dominant in relation to wholesale bitstream access. ComCom based its decision on a report which the Swiss competition commission Weko produced in the course of the procedure. Appeals against this decision of ComCom can be submitted to the Federal Administrative Court.

Swisscom takes a different view: there is active infrastructure competition and Swisscom cannot act independently on the reseller market. Swisscom does not consider itself to have a dominant position on the broadband services market. For this reason it has not provided regulated bit-stream offers to its competitors to date. Swisscom will examine the ruling in detail and decide what steps to take next.

   

Swisscom to boost HSPA coverage to 90% by mid-2008 (Switzerland)

  • November 4th, 2007
  • 2:30 pm

Swisscom has announced that from mid-November its 3.5G wireless customers will be able to take advantage of much higher speeds - up to 7.2Mbps for download and 1.4Mbps uplink - thanks to an upgrade to its High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) platform. The HSPA network will be expanded to provide coverage to 70% of the population by the end of 2007, from today’s 45%, while stage three of its plan will see 3.5G coverage match that of its UMTS network by mid-2008, extending coverage to 90% of the population.

   

 

Fastweb net loss narrows, revenues reach EUR 1.07 bln (Italy)

  • November 1st, 2007
  • 2:10 pm

Swisscom subsidiary and Italian broadband network operator Fastweb saw its revenues for first nine months of this year grow by 19 percent to EUR 1.068 billion, compare with the same period in 2006. Business revenues amount to 58 percent of the total, while consumer revenues amounted to 42 percent. The third-quarter revenues were EUR 353.8 million, up 11 percent from EUR 319.1 million in the third quarter of 2006. Consolidated EBITDA in the first nine months was grew by 48 percent year-on-year to EUR 317.4 million, while excluding the positive net impact of the extraordinary items booked in the second quarter of this year (EUR 43.5 million), organic EBITDA was EUR 273.9 million, 28 percent more than in the same period last year. The consolidated EBIT profit amounted to EUR 37.6 million compared with an EBIT loss of EUR 72.6 million in the first nine months of 2006. For the first nine months, Fastweb reports a consolidated net loss of EUR 33 million, a 49 percent improvement compared with EUR 64.2 million during the same period last year.

Fastweb’s customer base grew by 55,800 during the third quarter to reach 1.25 million on 30 September. The growth was high in September, due to Fastweb’s re-shaped offer, simplifying and updating its tariffs and making Fastweb TV available also on a stand-alone basis. Fastweb residential ARPU decreased 2 percent quarter on quarter to EUR 733.

In light of the company’s decision to focus on higher-margin core activities and to limit the contribution of low-margin wholesales business, 2007 full year revenue guidance is set at approximately EUR 1.45 billion, 15 percent more than in 2006 and the full year EBITDA guidance is approximately EUR 480 million (+59% on 2006). This includes EUR 43.5 million extraordinary items booked in the second quarter and is based on the same assumptions regarding termination rates that were incorporated in the previous guidance.

   

Swisscom revenue grows 6.7%, net profit reaches CHF 936 mln(Switzerland)

  • August 8th, 2007
  • 2:08 pm

Swisscom’s first half of this year results are influenced by the takeover of Italian broadband provider Fastweb. Revenue rose by 6.7 percent to CHF 5.09 billion, year-on-year and the 12.6 percent rise in Swisscom’s EBITDA to CHF 2.04 billion is mainly attributable to Fastweb and to special factors which negatively impacted last year’s results. Not including Fastweb, net revenue for the second quarter grew 1.6 percent year on year to CHF 2.437 billion. Declining revenues from traditional fixed-line business were offset by growth in project and outsourcing business with corporate customers, as well as further gains in broadband customers and growth in new business segments. On a quarterly comparison, EBITDA rose by CHF 294 million (+ 37.7%) to CHF 1.074 billion. Swisscom’s net profit for the first half of this year increased by 23.5 percent to CHF 936 million, due the repurchase of the 25 percent minority interest in Swisscom Mobile.

Swisscom’s operations in Switzerland enjoyed growth in customer numbers, with the total number of fixed, broadband and mobile lines in Switzerland hitting the ten-million mark. Swisscom fixed lines increased by 3.5 percent to 5.22 million on 30 June, including 1.51 million DSL customers. The number of DSL customers grew by 20.2 percent year-on-year and 50,000 of those customers have signed up for Swisscom’s IPTV service Bluewin TV. The number of mobile customers increased by 6.9 percent to 4.78 million at the end of June. By end-June 2007, 1.91 million customers had signed up for Swisscom Mobile’s Liberty product family and 317,000 for the M-Budget Mobile prepaid product. On top of this, Swisscom gained an additional 1.2 million customers from Fastweb.

Swisscom expects to close 2007 with net revenue of between CHF 11.2 billion and CHF 11.3 billion and EBITDA of between CHF 4.4 billion and CHF 4.5 billion. These figures include revenue and EBITDA from Fastweb of around CHF 1.8 billion and CHF 0.6 billion respectively.

   

Fastweb reports quarterly net profit of EUR 5.8 mln

  • August 6th, 2007
  • 2:44 pm

Swisscom subsidiary and Italian fixed network operator Fastweb reports a 24 percent increase in revenues from EUR 578.4 million for the first half of 2006 to EUR 714.4 million for the first half of this year. The revenues for the second quarter also grew by 25 percent to EUR 360.5 million compared with the same period in 2006. Fastweb’s consolidated EBITDA increased 75 percent to EUR 223.8 million for the first half of this year, partly as a result of extraordinary items including a EUR 60.8 million compensation from Telecom Italia because it failed to comply with LLU obligations.

The second quarter 2007 EBITDA amounted to EUR 137.7 million. Excluding extraordinary items, which produced a positive net impact of EUR 43.5 million in the second quarter of 2007, organic EBITDA in the first half 2007 was EUR 180.3 million, growing 41 percent year-on-year. In the second quarter, Fastweb reported consolidated net profit of EUR 5.8 million, compared with a net loss of EUR 18.2 million in the second quarter of 2006. For the first half of this year, Fastweb posted a consolidated net loss of EUR 14.9 million, a 68 percent improvement compared with EUR 47 million in the year-earlier period.

The total number of Fastweb as at 30 June was 1,195,600, compared with 1,150,400 as at 31 March. The number of net additions acquired in the April-June period was 62,500. The slowdown compared with the previous quarters was due partly to a slow down in the Italian broadband market, partly to FASTWEB compliance to the Bersani Decree that has introduced a reduction from 60 to 30 days for the notice period required to cancel a telecommunication contract and partly to the company’s decision to require new customers to use standing-order payments. The residential vs business customer mix was substantially unchanged (82% and 18% respectively), while the two segments accounted respectively for 42 percent and 58 percent of first half total revenues.

Fastweb’s residential ARPU in June amounted to EUR 747 on an annualized basis, compared with EUR 762 in March. The decrease, which is in line with expectations, was mainly due to the low seasonality of June compared to March. The performance was also due to a lower contribution from video services as a result of the commercial agreement with SKY, which came into effect in March, and to the impact of a reduction in pricing and to new marketing strategies implemented during the first half of 2007.

   

Swisscom sells customer card business to Maus (Switzerland)

  • June 29th, 2007
  • 10:07 am

Swisscom will set its wholly-owned subsidiary Accarda to Maus Freres Holding on 02 July. Accarda provides customer card services and customer loyalty systems in Switzerland. Its subsidiaries Billag and Medipa, plus its Collection Services unit, will remain part of the Swisscom group. The sale will allow Swisscom to focus on its core business and selected related operations. International retail group Maus plans to continue managing the card business as an independent company, with all 200 employees of Accarda’s card business division transferring to Maus. Accarda currently processes around 1.9 million card accounts for various retailers and oil companies.

   

Swisscom cuts prices

  • June 27th, 2007
  • 9:41 am

Swiss telecommunication company Swisscom AG (SCM) said Tuesday it will cut prices for some fixed-line calls abroad and some mobile call charges as of July 1.

Swisscom Fixnet and Swisscom Solutions will be reducing the basic rates for calls from the Swiss fixed network to fixed lines abroad. The price reduction of up to CHF0.60 per minute will apply to twelve countries. In addition to this, the mobile surcharges for 48 international destinations will be cut by CHF0.10 per minute.

The new rates for calls to fixed networks abroad will apply to calls to the Ukraine, Mexico, Egypt, China, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Venezuela, India and Vietnam. Customers of Swisscom Fixnet and Swisscom Solutions will benefit from a price reduction of up to 60% on calls to these countries starting 1 July 2007.

The price reduction on mobile surcharges will affect all countries in price groups 2 and 3 which are currently subject to a mobile surcharge. A full list of countries affected can be found on the Internet.

Mexico, Ukraine Weekday rate Mon-Fri Weekend rate Sat/Sun and public holidays New CHF 0.25 / minute New CHF 0.20 / minute Until now CHF 0.65 / minute Until now CHF 0.50 / minute

Egypt, China, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Venezuela Weekday rate Mon-Fri Weekend rate Sat/Sun and public holidays New CHF 0.65 / minute New CHF 0.50 / minute Until now CHF 1.25 / minute Until now CHF 1.00 / minute

India, Vietnam Weekday rate Mon-Fri Weekend rate Sat/Sun and public holidays New CHF 1.25 / minute New CHF 1.00 / minute Until now CHF 1.60 / minute Until now CHF 1.40 / minute

There will be no connection set-up charge and calls will be charged in increments of CHF0.10.