DEUTSCHE TELEKOM FINISHES FIRST QUARTER WITH 18% RISE IN NET PROFIT.

Deutsche Telekom, the world's third biggest telecommunications company, said on April 28 that its net profits were up 18% to 1 billion DM in the first quarter of the year in which the market is opening to full competition. This is, however, a provisional result that cannot be extrapolated over the year 1998 as a whole. The semi-public German group posted a quarterly pre-tax profit of DM 2.4 billion de DM (up 9% on the first quarter of 1997), while its turnover a rose 6.1% to DM 17.3 billion. Deutsche Telekom has nevertheless lost market share since January 1 to competition from private-sector new entrants on the traditional voice telephony market, where it previously had a monopoly. But the German giant has gained from the global growth of the telecoms market, according to the DT communique. Without going into any precise forecasts for 1998, Deutsche Telekom Chairman Ron Sommer stressed that these quarterly results could not be extrapolated over the whole of the year 1998 with any accuracy. He explained that the telecommunications regulatory body still had important decisions to take which would have major repercussions for DT. "The fixed telephony and mobile phone sectors have contributed to the rise in turnover in the first quarter of 1998, by respectively 4.6% and 15.8%", explained Deutsche Telekom's Financial...