Deutsche Telekom has presented new figures for the fourth quarter and the completed 2022 financial year, which are convincing all round. Business is developing positively in almost all segments.
Huge success for Deutsche Telekom on the domestic mobile market. The telecommunications group from Bonn was not only able to win many new contract customers in the fourth quarter of last year, but was also able to cushion the massive losses suffered in the third quarter in the prepaid segment . The figures for the entire year 2022 are also convincing. The same applies to the key financial data.
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM WITH MANY NEW MOBILE CUSTOMERS
While Vodafone only marginally increased its number of contract customers at the end of the year and Telefónica Deutschland ( O2 ) was able to grow by 263,000 contract customers , Telekom achieved growth of 247,000 customers with fixed-term contracts between October and December. In the case of brands operated in-house alone, including Congstar, the contract customer base increased by 225,000 in the final quarter. In total, there were 23.79 million contract customers in Telekom balance sheets as of the reporting date at the end of the year. Over the course of the past year, Telekom succeeded in increasing the number of contract customers by a total of 662,000.
The development in Germany looked somewhat different in the prepaid business of Deutsche Telekom. After a loss of 1.7 million prepaid customers in the third quarter, the signs pointed to growth again in the Christmas business. The number of prepaid customers increased by 1.01 million to 30.46 million. In 2022 as a whole, the number of prepaid customers increased by 376,000 active SIM cards .
And what about overseas? In the US, the number of mobile customers increased by 4.5 percent to 113.60 million customers in 2022 as a whole – of which 92.23 million were contract customers (+5.2 percent). In Europe, Telekom recorded a customer increase of 3.3 percent to 47.34 million outside of its home market in the same period. However, the number of contract customers in the European national companies fell by 0.4 percent year-on-year to 26.48 million.
MANY LESS LANDLINE CONNECTIONS, BUT MORE BROADBAND ACCESS
But back to Germany: Because more and more people only want to make calls with their cell phones or switch to a cable Internet connection, Telekom lost more customers in the fixed network business. As of the end of last year, only 17.36 million customers in Germany were still using a traditional telephone connection. This means that the number of fixed-line connections fell by 33,000 in the fourth quarter and by as much as 162,000 in the whole of 2022.
Parallel to this development, however, Telekom recorded growth in broadband connections. The number of high-speed Internet connections improved by 74,000 in the final quarter of last year and by 237,000 in 2022 as a whole to 14.72 million. As expected , the number of subscriber lines (ULLs) leased by Telekom competitors for their own broadband access continued to decline. 95,000 accesses in the fourth quarter, a total of 486,000 in the past year to just 3.14 million connected TALs.
4.12 million Telekom customers now use a TV contract to receive MagentaTV . Deutsche Telekom was thus able to increase its number of TV customers by 121,000 last year. In the fourth quarter, 51,000 new MagentaTV customers were added.
At other European national companies, Telekom was able to grow connections in the fixed network segment by a total of 1.3 percent to 7.91 million last year. The number of broadband customers in Europe apart from the German business even improved by 4.8 percent to 6.69 million, the number of TV customers by 2.8 percent to 4.13 million.
FINANCIAL FIGURES ARE ALSO CONVINCING
The financial development of Deutsche Telekom is also rosy. In the fourth quarter, sales increased by 4.0 percent to 29.80 billion euros, with 78 percent of sales now being generated abroad. Service revenue, including telecommunications services, even improved by 9.4 percent to EUR 23.72 billion. Telekom improved adjusted earnings from taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 9.9 percent to EUR 11.50 billion, and consolidated profit was EUR 1.01 billion after EUR 471 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
In 2022 as a whole, telecom revenue increased by 6.1 percent to EUR 114.41 billion, service revenue by 10.6 percent to EUR 91.95 billion. However, exchange rate effects, primarily due to the year-on-year strength of the US dollar, had a positive impact on the reported figures. Adjusted EBITDA improved by 7.5 percent to EUR 46.41 billion and consolidated net income almost doubled to almost exactly EUR 8 billion. Telekom intends to pay shareholders a dividend of 70 cents per share.
Incidentally, total sales in Germany last year increased by 1.9 percent to 24.51 billion euros. Things went even better in the USA, where sales increased by 11.3 percent to 75.44 billion euros. In the remaining European business, on the other hand, Telekom had to post a drop in sales of 1.2 percent to 11.16 billion euros. In the systems business, sales increased last year by 2.0 percent to 3.95 billion euros.
