telecommunications
Significantly more customers: O2 makes a strong profit
The logo of the mobile phone provider O2 lights up on the headquarters of Telefonica Deutschland/O2. photo
© Sven Hoppe/dpa/archive image
For the first time in ten years, the telecommunications provider Telefónica Deutschland (O2) has made a substantial profit on its own. The company announced on Wednesday that the net result had increased by almost 10 percent to 232 million euros in 2022. In the previous year, the profit was due to a special effect – at that time the company had booked a large amount from the sale of its infrastructure division. That was not the case in 2022. Nevertheless, the so-called result for the period increased.
For the first time in ten years, the telecommunications provider Telefónica Deutschland (O2) has made a substantial profit on its own. The company announced on Wednesday that the net result had increased by almost 10 percent to 232 million euros in 2022. In the previous year, the profit was due to a special effect – at that time the company had booked a large amount from the sale of its infrastructure division. That was not the case in 2022. Nevertheless, the so-called result for the period increased.
The last time Telefónica Germany made a larger profit of around 1.3 billion euros was in 2012. At that time the company went public. After that, the profit dropped to 78 million euros. Between 2014 and 2019, the subsidiary of the Spanish Telefónica group was in the deep red. Since 2020, Telefónica Deutschland has been profitable again thanks to the infrastructure sale. Telefónica Deutschland’s revenue increased last year by 5.9 percent to EUR 8.2 billion. The operating result adjusted for special effects (Oibda) increased by 5.3 percent to 2.5 billion euros.
The company justified the development with billions in investments over the past three years. Since then, O2’s mobile network has improved, giving the provider good cards when it comes to courting customers. While Vodafone recently weakened and was only able to gain 8,000 mobile customers in the last quarter of 2022 after deducting terminations, O2 increased by 264,000. Deutsche Telekom will present its figures for this period on Thursday.
Looking ahead, the O2 board is cautious: they expect slower growth in 2023. Sales are expected to increase in the low single-digit percentage range.
Along with Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, Telefónica is one of the three German cell phone network operators. The company has 7250 employees, 2200 of them in Munich and 800 in Düsseldorf. In addition to mobile phone contracts, O2 also offers landline contracts. In the fixed network division, the company uses lines from other companies – it plays more of a supporting role for the Munich company.
