Telecom Italia expressed confidence its numbers were beginning to move in the right direction following Covid-19 (coronavirus) hits earlier in the year, despite its Q3 revenue dropping on an annual basis.

In its earnings statement, the group said revenue amounted to €3.9 billion, down 5 per cent year-on-year. Service revenue was 6.4 per cent lower, though “innovative services” including cloud offerings contributed to an 18 per cent rise in its business segment’s sales.

Profit attributable to the parent company increased from €301 million in Q3 2019 to €500 million.

Mobile unit
Telecom Italia hailed improvement in its mobile performance in Italy in terms of “number portability”, as the number of customers switching to other operators (43,000) was at its lowest level in two years.

Its total mobile subscriptions were 30.2 million, a slight decline “due to the impact of the lockdown on the Machine to Machine lines, in turn linked to the performance of other industrial sectors, particularly the automotive one”.

The group kept its 2020 financial guidance from mid-year, expecting organic service revenue to record a mid-single-digit drop and low single-digit increases in 2021 and 2022.

It also said its 5G, cloud and IoT development segments were “progressing rapidly according to plan”.