Connect with us

International Circuit

Telefonica hits earnings targets, forecasts steady growth for 2023

Spain’s Telefonica forecast steady revenue and earnings growth for 2023 to send the telecom firm’s shares higher on Thursday after posting on-target numbers for last year.

Telefonica said it expected its overall revenue including its British joint-venture and excluding currency swings and M&A effects, to rise at “a low single digit rate” in 2023 after reporting a 4% rise last year. Its core earnings are expected to rise at the same pace as revenue, from a 3% growth in 2022.

“We have demonstrated our resilience and capacity to mitigate the adverse macroeconomic environment,” CEO Jose Maria Alvarez Pallete said in a statement.

“We are well positioned to continue on the path of profitable growth.”

Telefonica shares were up 2.3% in mid-morning trading following Telefonica’s statement.

Once crippled by a heavy debt, the firm has unloaded assets to cut its debt and raise cash to invest in new technologies such as rolling out a 5G network.

The company booked a net profit of 2.01 billion euro ($2.14 billion) in 2022, slightly above the 1.95 billion expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv Eikon.

That was down 75% versus 2021 when Telefonica booked capital gains on the sales of mobile towers and a tie-up between its O2 unit and Britain’s Virgin Media.

The group’s 2022 core earnings fell 42% to 12.85 billion euros but were up 3% organically.

Overall revenue rose to 39.99 billion euros from 39.28 billion.

Fourth quarter net profit was 525 million euros on revenue of 10.2 billion euros, up from 9.67 billion euros.

“Net profit came broadly in line with consensus estimates although on the operating front the figures were above expectations,” Capital Markets brokerage analysts said in a note to investors.

The company kept its 2023 dividend unchanged from last year at 0.30 euros per share. Reuters

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Copyright © 2024 Communications Today

error: Content is protected !!