Earnings: At O2, Numbers Inching Up; No Word On iPhone

Telefonica-owned mobile operator O2 (NYSE:TEF) released its results for Q2. Total revenues were 3.534 million euros ($4,840 million), compared to 3,418 million euros for the same quarter a year ago. O2 said revenue growth for 2007 will remain unchanged at 11 percent – 14 percent. However, Peter Erskine, the CEO, said the market continues to remain “highly competitive” in UK, Germany, Ireland and the Czech Republic. In Germany in particular turnover dropped 2.9 percent to 861 million euros compared to Q2 last year, and O2 has revised revenue growth down in that market to seven percent to 10 percent. Overall the operator added 534,000 mobile customers in the second quarter, taking the total mobile customer base to 36.4 million, 8.4% higher than last year. Some of the other highlights:

–In the UK, O2 is currently the largest operator but its growth is leveling off. This quarter it added 34,000 users, with the total customers now at 17.785 million, but this was a decrease of 10 percent over the same period last year. Revenue growth in the UK was 10.6 percent to 1,828 million euros.

–Mobile data average revenues per user coming from non-SMS data is still on the rise, even if the proportions remain small relative to overall ARPUs. In the UK, O2 says its data ARPU was 11 euros, 14.2 percent of which is non-SMS. In Germany, data ARPU was 5.10 euros, 25 percent of which is non-SMS. In Ireland, it was 11.20 euros, 23.4 percent of which is non-SMS. And in the Czech Republic, a whopping 42 percent of data ARPU is non-SMS, but overall data ARPU is a mere 3.10 euros.

–Unsurprisingly, Erskine did not confirm any of the O2/iPhone rumors, nor did he discuss the forward impact phasing out i-mode will have on the business. O2 UK in the meantime is planning to launch another music phone called the Cocoon next month.

You can download the full results here.

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