Telecom Lead Europe: Portugal Telecom’s Capex (capital expenditure) increased 10.7 percent to €287 million in Q1 2013.
The Capex of $287 million is equivalent to 18.5% of revenues.
Out of the total Capex, investment in Portugal telecom business was €115 million, registering a decline of 13.7 percent.
In 2012, total Capex for Portugal telecom business was €555 million. 48 percent of the Capex was invested for technology, 32 percent for customer related initiatives and 20 percent in other areas. In 2013, total Capex for Portugal telecom business will be less than €500 million.
Capex for Portuguese telecom businesses was in line with the expectation as the telecom operator has already completed most of the modernization investment.
Portugal Telecom’s Capex in Oi business was R$1691 million in Q1 2013 against R$2106 million in Q4 2012. Out of this, R$1319 million was spent on network, R$104 million in IT and R$267 million for other initiatives.
Other Capex was €23 million and this is a mix of higher Capex in Namibia but lower Capex in Cape Verde and Sao Tome because Portugal Telecom has finished the rollout of the submarine cables in these two countries.
Portugal Telecom’s revenues fell 9.5 percent to €1.55 billion with Brazil’s Oi bringing in €724 million.
Data revenue was 36 percent of service revenue in the first quarter of 2013 against 34.2 percent in the fourth quarter 2012.
Portugal Telecom’s domestic revenue dipped about 7 percent to €634 million.
The company’s net profit fell 52 percent to €27 million.
Portugal Telecom says its Pay-TV and 3G customers increased about 12.3 percent. It has 1.248 million customers, out of which 862,000 are triple-play. Triple-play customers have increased 18.5 percent since the first quarter of this year.
Portugal Telecom CEO Zeinal Bava says the company needs to work more on improving data revenues. “Mobile Internet still has substantial scope to grow in Portugal. We continue to push smartphone penetration to prepare ourselves for this big data growth.”
At present, value added services (VAS) and data is still a lot SMS driven for Portugal Telecom.
