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Munich (dpa) - For the first time since 2013, the telecommunications group Telefónica Deutschland made a profit again.
The company posted a surplus of 328 million euros last year, as Telefónica Deutschland announced in Munich on Wednesday.
In 2019 there was still a loss of 212 million euros.
The reason for the positive result for the period is the sale of the radio tower business - without the first partial payment for this, Telefónica would have been just in the red.
In 2014 Telefónica merged with E-Plus, after which the company was stuck in the red - this has now changed.
In 2020, sales climbed by 1.8 percent to 7.5 billion euros.
The company justified the development with an increasing demand for higher quality mobile and fixed network contracts.
There was also an increase in interest in bundled offers in which customers opt for several products from O2.
“We are starting 2021 stronger,” said CEO Markus Haas.
For this year he expects a constant to slightly higher turnover.
With its O2 brand, Telefónica is one of the three German mobile network operators, alongside Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone.
Telefónica also sells contracts for the Internet at home, i.e. fixed network.
Here the company uses lines from other companies that it has rented.
Telefónica has around 8,000 employees in Germany.
The company headquarters is in Munich, the second major location is Düsseldorf as the former E-Plus headquarters.
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In rural areas, O2's cellular network was long with holes in it, but Telefónica expanded the network considerably last year.
Now the company is satisfied that it is “on a par with the competition”.
The expansion was expensive.
To ensure that money gets into the till, Telefónica recently joined forces with a competitor, the designated fourth German mobile network operator 1 & 1 Drillisch.
As long as this company builds its own cellular network, its customers will continue to have access to the O2 network away from the Drillisch antennas.
In return, Telefónica will receive important rental income for years and can use its expensive network to full capacity.
The catch: The Munich-based company is helping a competitor who could steal market share from them in the long term.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210224-99-569490 / 2
Telefónica announcement