Spanish carrier Telefonica today announced a doubling of year-over-year profits for the period beginning in January and ending in September. Telefonica posted revenues of $12.2 billion, an increase of 65.6 percent from the same period last year. The company missed analyst expectations, which hovered around 74 percent.
The company counted 214 million total subscribers across all of its networks, which include Telefonica Spain, Telefonica Europe and Telefonica Latin America, a 4.4 percent increase over the year-ago period. Mobile broadband users increased to 14 million, a 74 percent increase over last year, but still only 9 percent of the company's total subscriber base.
Latin America continued to be Telefonica's growth driver. The carrier reported revenues for the region rose 10.7 percent versus the first nine months of 2009. Revenue for Telefonica Spain, on the other hand, declined by 4.2 percent, which marked a .3 percent drop over the first nine months of last year.
Telefonica recently purchased a 50 percent stake in Portugal Telecom's Vivo Participacoes, Brazil's largest mobile operator by subscribers. The company said that at least part of its revenue growth was due to that purchase.
Shares of Telefonica were down over 2 percent in early morning trading, to $73.94.