Deutsche Telekom Adds 9.1 Million Mobile Phone Customers In 04

FRANKFURT -(Dow Jones)- Deutsche Telekom AG (DT) Thursday said it saw strong growth in customer numbers in 2004, particularly in its fast-growing U.S. mobile phone and in its broadband business in Germany.

Deutsche Telekom said it added 9.1 million new customers in its mobile phone business in 2004, reaching 77.4 million mobile phone customers. The bulk of the new customers were added at its main T-Mobile International AG (TMO.YY) mobile phone unit, which increased customer numbers by 8.1 million to 69.2 million in 2004.

Deutsche Telekom continued to grow in the broadband and mobile communications sectors in the 2004 financial year. With a total of 6.1 million broadband DSL lines and around 54.7 million narrowband lines (including ISDN channels), T-Com continues to be one of the largest fixed network providers in Europe.

T-Mobile again recorded high growth rates for new customers - above all in the U.S. - and successfully implemented its clear target of increasing the proportion of fixed-term contract subscribers in its customer base.

By the end of 2004, the proportion of fixed-term contract subscribers in T-Mobile's total customer base had risen to around 51%, compared with roughly 49% at the end of 2003.

T-Mobile

Although the penetration rate is already very high in many markets, the number of mobile communications customers at all majority shareholdings, subsidiaries and associated companies of Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile International AG continued to grow in 2004. Growth of considerably more than 13%, or around 9.1 million was recorded over the entire year, bringing the total customer base to 77.4 million.

The number of mobile customers at T-Mobile subsidiaries increased by more than 8.1 million to almost 69.2 million in 2004. Just under 1.9 million new customers were acquired in the fourth quarter alone.

T-Mobile USA made a considerable contribution to this marked growth in subscriber numbers, recording an increase over the course of the year of 4.2 million net additions or just under 32%, to 17.3 million subscribers.

In the fourth quarter of 2004 alone, net growth in the number of subscribers served by T-Mobile USA was more than 1 million. The number of new contract subscribers increased by 5.6% to 15.3 million compared with the fourth quarter of 2004.

Over the full year, T-Mobile USA increased its number of fixed-term contract subscribers by 3.6 million.

T-Mobile Deutschland achieved growth of over 1.1 million customers over the course of the year - the focus of the previous financial year was qualitative customer growth, and over 80% of new customers were fixed-term contract subscribers.

As announced, T-Mobile Deutschland pursued an extremely targeted customer acquisition strategy in the fourth quarter of 2004 and made increased profitability a top priority. 113,000 new customers were acquired in the fourth quarter. Although the number of prepaid customers decreased by 46,000, the number of contract subscribers grew by 159,000. T-Mobile Deutschland was highly successful in attracting customers for the Relax rates, for which marketing began in February 2004. 1.3 million customers had already opted for one of the Relax rates by the end of the year.

The number of subscribers at T-Mobile UK increased by around 2.1 million over the course of the year to more than 15.7 million (including Virgin Mobile) In the fourth quarter of 2004 alone, the customer base grew by around 519,000, of which 57,000 were fixed-term contract subscribers. This means the target of 3 million contract customers in 2004 was achieved.

T-Mobile NL closed the 2004 financial year with a customer base of just under 2.3 million, an increase of 13.8% or 274,000 in the course of the year. Development in the fixed-term contact customer segment, which increased by 152,000, was particularly positive.

At T-Mobile CZ, customer numbers rose year-on-year by over 400,000, from 3.95 million to 4.36 million. In the fourth quarter alone, T-Mobile CZ gained 230,000 new customers. At T-Mobile Austria, the customer base of more than 2.0 million increased slightly.

T-Com

Strong demand for broadband fixed network lines continues unabated in the mass market.

The number of broadband DSL lines increased by 48.8% to 6.1 million in total throughout the course of the year (including Central and Eastern Europe).

As a result of the consistent marketing of T-DSL, the number of T-DSL lines in Germany only increased by 1.8 million to 5.8 million in 2004. This also includes the 246,000 DSL lines which T-Com sold to competitors as part of its resale offers.

In the fourth quarter alone, a total of over 628,000 new broadband lines were acquired in Germany. Deutsche Telekom's subsidiaries led by T-Com in Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia also focused on broadband communication as part of their business activities. Thus, companies in Central and Eastern Europe were able to increase the number of DSL lines by just under 140% to 265,000 year-on-year.

The number of narrowband channels in Germany and abroad decreased by 1.5% to 54.7 million. In the case of narrowband lines (including ISDN channels) in Germany, the decrease of 1.7% compared with the same period in 2003 is attributable to the substitution effects of mobile communications and also to customers switching to competitors.

The number of ISDN channels decreased for the first time in the second half of 2004 due to the discontinuation of the package price when ordering T-DSL together with T-ISDN and due to the increasing market saturation. Within the course of the entire year, the number of ISDN channels increased by just under 1% to 21.7 million.

T-Online

T-Online increased its registered customer base to 13.5 million by the end of the year. Germany accounted for around 11.4 million.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 27th January 2005