4 ms·

Here's a kind of sickening statement: '"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia," said the

Here's a kind of sickening statement: '"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia," said the GSM Association, an industry group for mobile phone companies. In a statement signed by director Anne Bouverot, the group said European laws are "impairing their ability to invest in the infrastructure required to put Europe back on the path to growth and jobs."' http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/european-parliament-adopts-net-neutrality-law-23172382 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/european-parliame... One example of these "poor companies": TeliaSonera: 1.69 billion euros in profit out of a 2.99 billion euro revenue (2013) Edit: Sorry, yearly revenue was about 11.6 billion euro.

Nux 13y ago
Yeah, someone seriously needs to whip their greedy arses. I guess we need even more competition to drive these dinosaurs a bit out of business. It's the USA and ASIA that should follow Europe, not the other way around.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
danielweber 13y ago
TeliaSonera: 1.69 billion euros in profit out of a 2.99 billion euro revenue (2013) I'm having trouble believing those numbers. I found a source that agrees with you [1] but Bloomberg charts show only a ~10% profit margin. [2] I wonder if the reporter in [1] confused annual revenue with quarterly revenue from this Bloomberg article. [3] EDIT: The reporter in [1] isn't wrong, but people misreading the first paragraph is probably the source of the confusion spreading across the Internet. Read down a few paragraphs and they compare 4th quarter net profit to 4th quarter revenue, which is roughly 10%. Also, here is the profit & loss statement from 2013. [4] Annual revenue is about 104 billion kronor, net income is about 15 billion kronor. [1] http://www.thelocal.se/20140130/beleaguered-teliasonera-took-profit-tumble-in-2013 http://www.thelocal.se/20140130/beleaguered-teliasonera-took... [2] http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/TLSN:SS http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/TLSN:SS [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/teliasonera-profit-misses-estimates-on-falling-broadband-mobile.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/teliasonera-profit-... [4] http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials?s=TLSN:STO&subview=IncomeStatement http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials...
- johansch 13y ago
  You're right, I was fooled by that first article's sneaky mixing of quarterly and annual numbers in the same sentence. "The group's annual net profit fell by 25 percent to 14.97 billion kronor (1.69 billion euros, $2.3 billion), while revenue dropped by three percent to 26.5 billion kronor." Still, these look like healthy numbers, and not like they are bleeding.
- emhart 13y ago
  Thank you very much for that breakdown!
Fuxy 13y ago
Yes... because companies with high profits hire more people... not. You only ever hire when you need more people and if you're making tonnes of money it means your network is OK compared to everyone else and you don't need to invest more. I think they will be more motivated now that the roaming cash cow is gone.
briandh 13y ago
I generally dislike telecom companies, but to be fair, the spokesperson said "decreasing revenues", not "paltry revenues", and said nothing about profit.
pessimizer 13y ago
>"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia," Because decisions on regulation should always have the goal of preserving the existing business models of middlemen:) It's an important truth with a lot of implications for the wealth of nations that wages are sticky on the way down; should we devote as much study to the fact that modern governments don't believe that any regulation should be allowed to make the overall system more efficient? The responsibility of the financial services are to allocate the utilization of resources between ventures that would produce more resources, and of course they as an industry find that 40% of that would be best allocated to themselves. The responsibility of government is to facilitate interactions between people by providing rules, and guaranteeing that other actors that can facilitate that interaction be distributed efficiently within the system, and have to operate at a minimum quality standard. It has also taken on the duty of handing money to any rent-seeker whose actual facilitation function has become obsolete in the face of technology and other productivity gains. This adds up to a situation where the financial industry and the state conspire to make sure that no productivity gains reach any individual either not in the financial services, or who doesn't represent a scarce resource required by rent seekers, i.e. mechanics of ways to obstruct interaction between individuals. My only hope is that the inevitable slowdown in productivity that will come as the benefits of the Internet peter out (and by the repetition of identical siloed communication tools as a business model, that time is nigh) will force societies to eliminate these generalized inefficiencies just to keep up with population growth. We're seeing how that's going to play out right now in health care, education, and housing. Sorry for typing this excerpt of my endless rant:)
- johansch 13y ago
  Population growth is at the moment only happening in Africa though.

Nux 13y ago

Yeah, someone seriously needs to whip their greedy arses. I guess we need even more competition to drive these dinosaurs a bit out of business. It's the USA and ASIA that should follow Europe, not the other way around.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

danielweber 13y ago

TeliaSonera: 1.69 billion euros in profit out of a 2.99 billion euro revenue (2013) I'm having trouble believing those numbers. I found a source that agrees with you [1] but Bloomberg charts show only a ~10% profit margin. [2] I wonder if the reporter in [1] confused annual revenue with quarterly revenue from this Bloomberg article. [3] EDIT: The reporter in [1] isn't wrong, but people misreading the first paragraph is probably the source of the confusion spreading across the Internet. Read down a few paragraphs and they compare 4th quarter net profit to 4th quarter revenue, which is roughly 10%. Also, here is the profit & loss statement from 2013. [4] Annual revenue is about 104 billion kronor, net income is about 15 billion kronor. [1] http://www.thelocal.se/20140130/beleaguered-teliasonera-took-profit-tumble-in-2013 http://www.thelocal.se/20140130/beleaguered-teliasonera-took... [2] http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/TLSN:SS http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/TLSN:SS [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/teliasonera-profit-misses-estimates-on-falling-broadband-mobile.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/teliasonera-profit-... [4] http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials?s=TLSN:STO&subview=IncomeStatement http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials...

johansch 13y ago
You're right, I was fooled by that first article's sneaky mixing of quarterly and annual numbers in the same sentence. "The group's annual net profit fell by 25 percent to 14.97 billion kronor (1.69 billion euros, $2.3 billion), while revenue dropped by three percent to 26.5 billion kronor." Still, these look like healthy numbers, and not like they are bleeding.
emhart 13y ago
Thank you very much for that breakdown!

Fuxy 13y ago

Yes... because companies with high profits hire more people... not. You only ever hire when you need more people and if you're making tonnes of money it means your network is OK compared to everyone else and you don't need to invest more. I think they will be more motivated now that the roaming cash cow is gone.

briandh 13y ago

I generally dislike telecom companies, but to be fair, the spokesperson said "decreasing revenues", not "paltry revenues", and said nothing about profit.

pessimizer 13y ago

>"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia," Because decisions on regulation should always have the goal of preserving the existing business models of middlemen:) It's an important truth with a lot of implications for the wealth of nations that wages are sticky on the way down; should we devote as much study to the fact that modern governments don't believe that any regulation should be allowed to make the overall system more efficient? The responsibility of the financial services are to allocate the utilization of resources between ventures that would produce more resources, and of course they as an industry find that 40% of that would be best allocated to themselves. The responsibility of government is to facilitate interactions between people by providing rules, and guaranteeing that other actors that can facilitate that interaction be distributed efficiently within the system, and have to operate at a minimum quality standard. It has also taken on the duty of handing money to any rent-seeker whose actual facilitation function has become obsolete in the face of technology and other productivity gains. This adds up to a situation where the financial industry and the state conspire to make sure that no productivity gains reach any individual either not in the financial services, or who doesn't represent a scarce resource required by rent seekers, i.e. mechanics of ways to obstruct interaction between individuals. My only hope is that the inevitable slowdown in productivity that will come as the benefits of the Internet peter out (and by the repetition of identical siloed communication tools as a business model, that time is nigh) will force societies to eliminate these generalized inefficiencies just to keep up with population growth. We're seeing how that's going to play out right now in health care, education, and housing. Sorry for typing this excerpt of my endless rant:)

johansch 13y ago
Population growth is at the moment only happening in Africa though.