Orange Profit Drops

(RTTNews) - French telecom giant Orange SA (ORAN), previously known as France Telecom, said profit for the year declined from the previous year. The company also recorded lower revenues.

Net income declined to 1.225 billion euros from 2.133 billion euros in 2013, amid lower operating income, higher corporate tax and decrease in net income from operations that are discontinued. The group's share of net income was 925 million euros in 2014, compared to 1.873 billion euros in 2013.

Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization or EBITDA dropped to 11.112 billion euros from 12.235 billion euros, and operating income declined to 4.571 billion euros from 5.333 billion euros.

Restated EBITDA was 12.190 billion euros in 2014, a decrease of 2.5 percent on a comparable basis.

Revenues fell 3.7 percent to 39.445 billion euros from 40.981 billion euros. Revenues were down 2.5 percent on a comparable basis, following a 4.5 percent decline in 2013.

Revenue dropped in all businesses, except the International Carriers and Shared Services where it advanced 6.6 percent to 1.814 billion euros.

In France, the revenue decrease was 3.6 percent at 19.304 billion euros, amid declines in Mobile Services and Fixed Services.

Spain generated 3.876 billion euros in revenues, down 4.4 percent from last year. The company noted that efforts to reduce the cost base offset more than half of the decline in revenues.

Poland reported a 5.2 percent fall at 2.918 billion euros, and Rest of World revenues were 5.4 percent lower at 7.374 billion euros. In the Enterprise segment, revenue fell 3.3 percent to 6.299 billion euros.

There were 185.3 million mobile services customers at December 31, 2014, an increase of 6.5 percent from last year.

Looking ahead, Orange expects a restated EBITDA of between 11.9 billion euros and 12.1 billion euros for 2015.

The stock closed at 16.34 euros in Paris on Monday.