The world’s fourth largest telephone company, the state-owned France Telecom reported full year results yesterday, showing much higher profits on flat turnover, as financial charges fell commensurately with lower, though sizeable debts. The company, which ranks behind Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp, Deutsche Bundespost Telekom and AT&T Corp, saw net profit rose by 45% to the equivalant of $887.7m, after an $2,810m unchanged payment to the state, on turnover up 3.6% at $23,490m. According to Reuter in Paris, from this year, it will pay taxes like a normal company. According to the company its figures had suffered in the difficult economic climate, and had been buoyed only by the introduction of new services such as the Intineris and Bi-Bop mobile services. Indeed the total subscribers base for mobile services increased by 33.6% to 437,000 while the total of telephone lines were fairly flat at 30.9m and Minitel subscription was up 3.2% at 6.5m. The company was able to cut its debt by $1,110m to $19,530m and increased its investments by $930m to $6,510m, to make it France’s largest corporate investor for the year.
