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New Zealand's dominant telecoms company Telecom Corp. Friday posted a sharply higher net profit for the second quarter but the underlying earnings were lower after stripping out one-off factors.
Telecom said its net profit for the December quarter was 80 million dollars (56 million US), up from 14 million dollars in the same three months in 2008.
But one-off charges in the previous period saw adjusted net earnings fall from 105 million dollars, the company said.
The result for the quarter was close to analysts' expectations of a profit around 77 million dollars.
Group revenue fell 6.5 percent to 1.32 billion dollars from 1.41 billion dollars a year earlier.
As a result of the economic downturn in both New Zealand and Australia, Telecom said it had seen a reduction in customer spending during the December quarter, most notably in revenue from mobile and international calling, as well as providing services for new housing areas.
The company maintained its guidance for adjusted net earnings of 400 to 440 million dollars for the full year to June 30, adding the figure was likely to be at the lower end of the range.
That reflected the economic downturn and problems, following the introduction last year of its 3G mobile network XT, which had two major outages in recent months.
"Following the major network outage in January, a strong focus for XT is to restore customer confidence," chief executive Paul Reynolds said.
