OTE Telecom second quarter profit up as Greek economy recovers

Greece’s biggest telecoms operator OTE posted a 1.7 percent rise in second-quarter core profit on Thursday as a recovery in its home market helped offset poor performance at its Romanian operations.

The former national monopoly, which is 45 percent owned and managed by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 321.9 million euros ($360.75 million) for the quarter, up from 316.4 million euros a year earlier.

In Greece, where the economy has been recovering after a crippling debt crisis, adjusted EBITDA increased by 4.7 percent.

In Romania, profit fell 20 percent, hurt by a fall in revenues at both fixed line and mobile services. Performance in Romania was expected to stabilise after implementing one-off measures, the group said.

Sales rose 0.4 percent to 946.9 million euros.

It maintained its forecast for reported free cash flow of about 350 million euros for the full year. 

[Reuters]