Swisscom shares fall more than 3% on lowered revenue guidance

Swisscom slightly lowered its full-year revenue guidance on Thursday, citing a strong Swiss franc and lower hardware sales in Switzerland, driving its shares down more than 3%.

The former state telecoms monopoly now expects net revenue of about 11.0 billion Swiss francs ($12.2 billion) in 2023, compared with a previous forecast of 11.1 billion to 11.2 billion francs.

“The market is somewhat surprised as this is rather unusual for Swisscom,” Research Partners analyst Reto Huber wrote in an email, adding however that the altered guidance was “not a cause for concern”.

The company’s shares were down 3.3% at 0930 GMT, hitting the bottom of Swiss blue-chip index.

Chief Executive Christoph Aeschlimann told Reuters he expects lower hardware sales to continue next year as customers keep their handsets for much longer than before due to inflation weighing on consumer budgets.

The Swiss company, whose Fastweb division operates in Italy, is among the companies in the Alpine nation whose results have been dented by the Swiss franc’s gains against the euro.

Fastweb reported accelerating growth in the third quarter as its customer base and revenue from business and wholesale customers increased, despite a challenging market environment.

The unit’s revenue rose 9.5% to 660 million euros in the third quarter, above consensus of 619 million euros, while quarterly revenue for the firm’s core Swiss business declined again, falling 0.8% to 2.02 billion francs compared to consensus of 2.04 billion francs.

Group revenue reached 2.75 billion francs in the third quarter of 2023, roughly in line with analysts’ estimate of 2.73 billion francs in a company-compiled consensus. Reuters