Deutsche Telekom raises guidance after bumper Q3

By Paul Carrel and Martin Coulter

BERLIN (Reuters) – Deutsche Telekom on Thursday raised its annual earnings forecast for the third time this year after its quarterly profit beat estimates.

The company benefited from more customers signing up for its services in Europe and its U.S. unit T-Mobile.

However, an 8.8% growth in net revenue to 29 billion euros fell marginally short of analysts’ expectation of 29.2 billion euros. The company’s shares were down 0.8% at 1415 GMT.

The telecoms operator reported a rise in third quarter adjusted net profit of 80% to 2.4 billion euros ($2.4 billion) and said it planned to increase its dividend to 0.70 euro per share from 0.64 euros in 2021.

“Our businesses continue to grow, said Tim Hottges, chairman of Deutsche Telekom’s management board. “That puts us in a position to raise not only our guidance – for the third time this year – but also our dividend.”

The company said it expected full-year adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to come in at more than 37.0 billion euros, up from previous guidance of around 37.0 billion.

The company cited potential gas shortages this winter as the “biggest threat” to economic stability.

“The situation in Europe continues to be unstable,” said Hoettges. “There is still a war going on in Ukraine, energy costs are skyrocketing, and inflation is on the rise.”

T-Mobile US recorded 1.6 million new post-paid customers in the third quarter, including 854,000 phone customers.

The company highlighted a string of major deals signed in 2022, including a deal with SpaceX aimed at improving cellphone coverage across the United States, and an expanded partnership with Google’s cloud computing unit.

(This story has been refiled to fix typographical error in Deutsche Telekom chair’s surname)

(Reporting by Paul Carrel and Martin Coulter; Editing by Miranda Murray and Jonathan Oatis)