Deutsche Telekom raises guidance after strong Q1

BERLIN: Deutsche Telekom has raised its profit guidance for 2021 after a strong showing by its businesses in the United States and Europe in the first quarter (Q1), with group revenue and core profit beating market estimates.

“We are sustaining momentum and continuing our successful growth story,” said chief financial officer Christian Illek.

“Our customer numbers and key financial metrics are on track on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Following a guidance raise by US unit T-mobile, which has already reported results, Deutsche Telekom also nudged up the outlook for profit and cash flow at its European operations for the year.

It now expects group adjusted earnings before interest, depreciation, taxation and amortisation after leases (ebitda AL) to exceed €37bil

(Us$44.8bil or Rm185bil) and free cash

€8bil flow after leases to exceed (Rm40bil). Previously core profit had been seen at

€37bil around (Rm185bil) and free cash flow

€8bil. at around

€26.39bil Q1 revenue increased by 32.3% to (Us$32bil or Rm132bil), beating consensus

€25.59bil estimates of (Rm128bil) in a poll of analysts published by the company.

€9.245bil Ebitda AL rose 41.3% to (Rm46bil), also topping market expectations.

After stripping out one-off gains from T-mobile’s acquisition of smaller US rival Sprint, which closed just over a year ago, revenue grew by 7.1% in the quarter and adjusted ebitda AL by 8.3% on an organic basis.

The one-off effects will drop out of the equation from Q2.