News
Telefónica had 202 million Wireless Accesses (+7.4%) Worldwide in 2009
Telefónica Group’s intense commercial activity resulted in a 5.1% year-on-year increase in total accesses to around 265 million. This growth excludes Medi Telecom’s customers from the 2008 and 2009 bases, after its disposal in the fourth quarter of 2009. The clients’ evolution was underpinned by the increase in wireless (+7.4%), fixed broadband (+8.2%) and pay TV (+9.8%) accesses. By region, the growth rates reported by Telefónica Europa (+6.9% year-on-year) and Telefónica Latinoamérica (+6.5% year-on-year) must be highlighted.
By type of access, the Telefónica Group had over 202 million wireless accesses at the end of 2009, with net adds of around 15 million accesses in comparable terms, excluding Medi Telecom clients and the disconnection of inactive customers in December 2008 and December 2009.
It is worth highlighting that in the second half of the year net adds tripled the ones for the first six months. This impressive performance was underpinned by the significant improvements in the three areas of operations, whose quarterly net adds progressively rose over the year. In the second half of the year, net adds in Latin America were 3.3 times higher than in January-June 2009, while wireless net adds at Telefónica España and Telefónica Europa in the second half were 4.9 times and 1.9 times higher respectively than in January-June 2009.
The main drivers of wireless net adds to December 2009 were Brazil (6.8 million), Mexico (2.1 million), Germany (1.5 million), Argentina (1.1 million) and UK (1 million). The main contributors in the fourth quarter were Brazil (2.9 million), Mexico (0.9 million), Argentina (0.5 million) and Germany (0.6 million).
Mobile broadband accesses also registered significant growth, exceeding 15 million at the end of December 2009 (vs. 9 million accesses recorded in 2008).
Retail internet broadband accesses stood at 13.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 8.2%, driven by the growing adoption of bundled voice, ADSL and Pay-TV service packages. In Spain nearly 88% of retail broadband accesses are bundled as part of some kind of dual or triple play package, whilst in Latin America almost 56% of broadband accesses are bundled as part of Duos or Trios. In 2009 net adds exceeded 1.0 million accesses (0.3 million in the fourth quarter), mostly from Argentina and UK.
Pay TV accesses stood at around 2.5 million at the end of 2009, 9.8% up from a year earlier. It is worth mentioning that the Company already offers Pay-TV services in Spain, the Czech Republic, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina.
–Highly diversified profile driving organic revenue growth–
As the Company announced last February 5th, several factors occured during 2009 and the beginning of 2010 have led, among other reasons, to consider the Venezuelan economy as hyperinflationary for 2009, according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). As a result, the financial results of Telefónica Group and, therefore, those of Telefónica Latinoamérica and the Atento Group are affected by the above mentioned effects. For comparative purposes and in order to facilitate the interpretation of the year-on-year variations versus 2008 results, changes in constant currency of the items affected by the hyperinflation adjustment are reported excluding these impacts.
Therefore, and despite the complex trading environment in 2009, reflected in sharp pressure on revenues in some of our markets, the strong diversification of the Company’s business portfolio enabled the Group to achieve revenues of 56,731 million euros in 2009 (-2.1% year-on-year in reported terms), up 0.2% year-on-year in organic terms. Particularly noteworthy is the significant increase in revenues at Telefónica Latinoamérica, which contributed 2.7 percentage points to organic growth and, to a lesser extent, at Telefónica Europa, which contributed 0.2 percentage points. Also worth noting is the improved revenue performance from Telefónica España in the second half of the year, with a slowdown in the pace of year-on-year revenue decline in the fourth quarter (for the second consecutive quarter).
The negative impact from foreign exchange rates reduced revenue growth by 2.9 percentage points, excluding the impact from hyperinflation accounting while changes in the consolidation perimeter added 0.1 percentage points, also excluding the adjustment from hyperinflation accounting.
By service, broadband connectivity revenues (wireline and mobile) and revenues from applications and services continued to increase their contribution to Group revenues, adding 2.5 percentage points to organic revenue growth in 2009. This offsets the lower contribution of access, voice and equipment resulting from the consumers usage optimization in the current economic environment.
In absolute terms, Telefónica Latinoamérica contributed 40.5% to total Group revenues (+1.8 percentage points compared to 2008, excluding the impact from hyperinflation accounting), whilst Telefónica España and Telefónica Europe contributed 34.7% and 23.9% to Group revenue respectively.
Telefónica Group’s operating expenses in 2009 amounted to 35,489 million euros, down 0.4% from 2008 in organic terms (-2.9% in reported terms), as a result of lower supply expenses.
Personnel expenses rose 2.7% year-on-year in constant euros and excluding the impact from hyperinflation accounting to 6,775 million euros (+0.2% in reported terms). The average number of employees in the period was 255,151 (3,376 more than the 2008 average), mainly due to the larger workforce at the Atento Group. Excluding the Atento Group workforce, the average number of employees in the Telefónica Group was virtually stable year-on-year at 125,266.
Gains on sale of fixed assets in 2009 amounted to 248 million euros, mainly from the disposal of Medi Telecom, which generated 220 million euros of capital gains, registered in the fourth quarter of the year.
Telefónica : 26/02/2010