A1 Telekom Austria's Q1 profit up, sees negative coronavirus effects in Q2
28/04/2020 18:34
VIENNA, April 28 (Reuters) - A1 Telekom Austria TELA.VI
said its networks coped well with a strong growth in data and
voice traffic arising from increased home office work in the
wake of the spread of the coronavirus in the first quarter,
helping its profit rise 4%.
However, the group expects negative effects on residential
and business customers in coming weeks and increased its
provisions for bad debt due to a gloomy macroeconomic outlook,
it said on Tuesday.
"Due to the uncertain duration of the crisis, the further
effects are not yet foreseeable and are quite diverse," said
Chief Executive Thomas Arnoldner.
While an increased demand for bandwidth, home office
solutions or digitization projects was positive, international
travel restrictions had a negative impact on roaming revenues.
"We have to suspend our outlook for the full year 2020 due
to the currently unforeseeable COVID-19 effects," the CEO said.
Net profit increased to 89 million euros ($96 million) on
revenues of 1.13 billion euros in the three months through
March, the group said.
($1 = 0.9236 euros)
(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle; Editing by Ken Ferris)
((kirsti.knolle@thomsonreuters.com; +43 1 2530 1650 13;))