Deutsche Telekom Q1 Profit Up, But Outlook Darkens

GEORGE FREY

FRANKFURT (AP) — Deutsche Telekom AG said Tuesday that pretax profits rose in the first quarter, helped by higher sales after the acquisition of a Greek unit, but that it still expected a decline in full year profits due to the world economic crisis.

In a brief statement, Bonn-based Telekom said earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization — a measure of profit before taxes — rose about 3 percent to euro4.8 billion ($6.2 billion) during the January-March period.

It did not provide a figure for net profit, which in the first quarter of 2008 stood at euro924 million.

The EBITDA figure includes contributions from a recently acquired stake in the Greek telecommunications company OTE, Telekom said.

Telekom said it booked a 6 percent increase in first quarter sales to euro15.9 billion, which includes the OTE stake. In the first quarter of 2008, the company saw sales of euro14.98 billion.

Despite the improvement, the company said it expects its pretax profits to fall between 2 percent and 4 percent for the whole of 2009, below the euro19.5 billion the company reported in 2008.