Deutsche Telekom saw its Q1 numbers boosted by the sale of its stake in UK operator EE.

The deal, which also saw Telekom becoming a shareholder in EE’s new owner, BT, contributed income of €2.5 billion.

For Q1, the company reported a net profit of €3.13 billion, up from €787 million, on revenue of €17.63 billion, up 4.7 per cent. EBITDA adjusted for “special factors” increased 12.9 per cent to €5.16 billion, driven by a strong performance in the US.

In its home market of Germany, revenue declined by 2.5 per cent, due to lower mobile terminal sales and a “slight decline” in service revenue, with EBITDA down 4.8 per cent to €2 billion when including restructuring charges.

As previously reported, T-Mobile US had a strong quarter, with EBITDA doubling to €2.27 billion on revenue up 13.2 per cent (in Euro terms) to €7.82 billion. This was attributed to continued strong customer growth, off the back of its ‘Uncarrier’ initiatives.

Europe
For its Europe segment, EBITDA was flat at €962 million, on revenue which decreased 2.4 per cent to €3.08 billion (the company said that excluding some spinoffs and currency movements, revenue was “more or less stable”). Hungary was a weak spot, with revenue down 9.4 per cent, impacted by factors such as termination rate cuts, while Netherlands saw a 6.4 per cent decline as a result of price-driven decreases in voice.

The company has also been reshuffling its US spectrum holdings. In January, it acquired frequencies covering seven major markets for around €0.5 billion; it also entered an exchange and acquisition arrangement with third parties to gain licences for spectrum covering 48 million people for €0.6 billion; and, in March 2016 licences were swapped with AT&T, leading to a non-cash gain.

It also won €0.5 billion worth of spectrum in an auction in Poland, and is in negotiations over a similar deal in the country after another bidder declined to accept its spectrum.

The group ended the period with 158.4 million mobile customers, up 3.9 per cent year-on-year.