Cesar Alierta, executive chairman of Telefonica, noted “progressive improvement quarter by quarter” during 2012, as a result of “deep transformation process at Telefonica” intended to regain sustainable growth and increase margins.

Reporting a decreased profit, the company said its full year numbers were affected by a number of extraordinary items, which hit its net profit to the tune of EUR2.54 billion. These included adjustments in the value of its Telecom Italia and Telefonica Ireland holdings, and the devaluation of the Venezuelan currency.

More positively, the company highlighted “solid growth of mobile data revenue” (up 12.8 per cent year-on-year) and growth of its Latin American units (up 5.5 per cent).

Latin America “consolidated its position as the region that contributes most to the group’s revenue”, at over 50 percent of the total in Q4.

The company closed the year with 247.3 million mobile customers, up 4 per cent, with growth of 7 percent in the lucrative contract customer base. It had 52.8 million mobile broadband customers, up 38 per cent.

For the fourth quarter of 2012, the company reported a net profit of EUR473 million, compared with a prior-year profit of EUE2.67 billion, on revenue of EUR15.84 billion, down 2 per cent from EUR16.17 billion.

For the full year, it saw a net profit of EUR3.93 billion, down 27.3 per cent from EUR5.4 billion, on revenue of EUR62.36 billion, down 1 per cent from EUR62.84 billion.

During the twelve months, the company reduced its debt by EUR5 billion, to stand at EUR51.26 billion.