Danish telecom profit soars, pre-tax earnings forecast revised upward

COPENHAGEN

Danish telecoms operator TDC, formerly known as Tele Danmark, reported Nov. 4 a big increase in third-quarter profit to show a staggering nine-month increase of 387 percent.

Third-quarter profit before exceptional items rose by 118-percent from the equivalent figure last year to 718 million kroner (96.6 million euros).

The results for TDC, controlled by the U.S. group SBC, compared with profit of 329 million kroner for the same period of last year.

Net profit for the first nine months of 2002 rose by 387 percent to 3.9 billion kroner, against 800 million kroner for the same period last year.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization rose 1.6 percent to 10.9 billion kroner over the first nine months of the year, on steady turnover of 38.2 billion kroner.

The company's management has revised upwards its forecast for 2002 pre-tax earnings to 14.2 billion kroner from 14.0 billion kroner.

The company said it expected turnover in 2003 to grow to 54.5 billion kroner, generating 15.1 billion kroner in pre-tax earnings and a net profit of 1.9 billion kroner over the year.

"These good third-quarter results prove that we're following our strategies," said company chairman Henning Dyremose in a press statement, adding that the firm's Swiss branch continued to increase turnover.

"TDC Switzerland continues to mark progress, posting a 28-percent increase in turnover in the mobile telecoms sector, which explains our revised forecasts" for 2002, Dyremose said.

The Swiss arm posted a 17.8 percent increase in turnover across fixed and mobile sectors in the third quarter to 2.25 billion kroner with pre-tax earnings rising to 368 million kroner from the third quarter of 2001.

Pre-tax earnings for the whole group rose 18 percent to 3.86 billion kroner, up on analysts' expectations, after forecasting figures of between 3.58 and 3.64 billion kroner.

TDC acquired controlling stakes in Swiss groups DiAX and Sunrise in November 2000 and subsequently created TDC Switzerland, which has been fully consolidated in the TDC Group since February last year.

Shares in TDC rose 12.5 kroner to 171 kroner on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange in response to the results.