Colt canters as revenue decline slows

published 23 February 2012

The business communications firm, Colt, says profits fell in 2011 as regulation of mobile termination rates reduced revenues.

Turnover for the year was €1,554m, a drop of 1.9% against 2010. Profit before tax and exceptional items fell 6.6% to €72m.

The company achieved cost reductions to boost earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 0.5% to €332m despite the falling revenues.

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Across the three business units Data saw revenues of €805.1m (2010: €801.1m) with Ethernet growth of 10.6% being offset by declining legacy products and lower asset sales.

Managed Services, which includes data centres, achieved revenues of €186.2m (2010: €172.6m), representing a rise of 7.9%.

The real problem was the Voice division (phone calls and the like) which saw turnover of €563.0m, a fall by 7.7% on 2010, with the majority of that decline occurring in the first half (11.3% decline compared to 3.9% for second half of 2011).

Colt says it expects "the pace of regulatory driven declines in 2012 to slow from the pace seen in 2011 which included a 50% reduction in German mobile termination rates."

The market liked what it got from Colt today, with the shares rising 1.2% although since February of 2011 the value of the group has dropped 36%.