It reported a fourth quarter net loss of 100m euros ($110m), down from a net loss of 2.5bn euros ($2.7bn) in the year ago quarter, on revenues up 9% to 14.5bn euros ($16bn). For the year to December 31, it reported a net loss of 24.6bn euros ($27.1bn), compared with a loss of 3.5bn ($3.8bn) in 2001, on revenues that rose 11% to 53.7bn euros ($59.3bn). Some 21.4bn euros ($23.6bn) was booked in write-downs.

Full year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 7.8% to 16.3bn ($18bn). Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization adjusted for asset sales rose 15% to 4.4bn euros ($4.8bn), from 3.8bn euros ($4.1bn) in the same quarter last year.

T-Mobile International, the group’s mobile division, posted a 24.4% rise in EBITDA to 1.2bn euros ($1.3bn). T-Mobile added 2.7 million customers in the fourth quarter, bumping its total number of subscribers to 53.9 million. T-Mobile USA, the unit formerly known as VoiceStream Wireless Corp, added more than 1 million customers in the fourth quarter.

T-Mobile remains the group’s main engine of growth, while T-Com, the fixed line business, remains the company’s main cash generator.

The heavily indebted company has made some progress at reducing its net debt, which at the end of 2002 stood at 61.1bn euros ($67.4bn), down from 64.3bn euros ($71bn) at the end of September 2002. This was achieved through a combination of asset sales, including real estate sales, the sale of 120 million shares in its T-Online internet unit, and the sale of a stake in a satellite business.

Despite the 4.5bn euros ($4.9bn) worth of asset disposals, analysts remain unconvinced of the promise to cut debt to between 49.5bn euros ($54.7bn) and 52.3bn euros ($57.8bn) by the end of 2003, and are suspicious of the management’s willingness to restructure and cut costs aggressively. There were also fears that chief executive Kai-Uwe Ricke, who took over from the ousted Ron Summer in November, was too much a protege of Sommer to give the company the radical change in direction it needs.

Ricke hopes to avoid a wide ranging restructuring, but is continuing a strategy of spending cuts and eliminating approximately 55,000 jobs, a highly sensitive move in Germany, which now has record levels of unemployment.

Source: Computerwire