Awwal 22, 1432 H/Feb 25, 2011, SPA -- Germany's telco major Deutsche Telekom said Friday it managed to edge up net profit last year to 1.7 billion euros (2.3 billion dollars) thanks to gains in data traffic on mobile devices, according to dpa. But markets took a dim view of the figures, which suggested continued stagnation at the troubled company. On the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Telekom shares declined 1.5 per cent in a flat market to 9.77 euros. At its head office in Bonn, Telekom said revenues last year rose a modest 0.4 per cent to 62.4 billion euros after factoring out sales by the group's former British subsidiary T-Mobile UK, which has since been merged into a joint venture. Net profit has often lagged at the ailing former monopolist: in 2009 it was a mere 353 million euros. The two years are not properly comparable as Telekom took billions of dollars in write-offs at a British subsidiary in 2009. Smartphones and other mobile data devices have put a little colour back into the cheeks of most telecoms companies in the past year, with revenues up as legions of users read emails in real time and use the internet while on the move. Chief executive Rene Obermann said in a statement that Telekom had withstood fierce competition. "We have battled through the headwind caused by the economic environment, special taxes in several countries and stiff competition. I am particularly pleased about the slight increase in revenue," said Obermann. The group continues to grapple with problems at its Greek and Romanian subsidiaries. T-Mobile USA faces the added problem that is has suffered a net loss in customers for the first time in its history, the figures showed. Telekom's brightest-looking figure was its earnings before interest, taxes and amortization, which came in at 19.5 billion euros, but even that was down 3.4 per cent from one year earlier. As if to underline Telekom's weak performance, a smaller rival, the German unit of Telefonica O2, announced the same day im Munich earnings of 1.15 billion euros on far smaller revenues of just 4.8 billion euros.
