Downturn, outages eating into profit forecast

Telecom said yesterday its annual results are likely to be at the lower end of the guidance range it had previously given, citing the impact of the economic downturn and several major outages on its new XT mobile network.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) for the six months to December 31 were down 1.4 per cent to $872 million. Ebitda for the quarter was up 1.7 per cent to $425 million.

Revenue for the six months was down 6.5 per cent to $2.67 billion, with net profit down 4.3 per cent to $243 million.

Chief financial officer Russ Houlden said the guidance was set before the downturn. A higher than expected dividend from its stake in the Southern Cross cable offset some of the impact.