The financials showed TIM's full year revenue exceeded forecasts, coming in at €16 billion for 2020 compared to the €15.7 billion projected, although the total revenue figure was down €2 billion on the previous year.
On profits, Q4 saw a rise to €6.05 billion, from €64 million in Q4 2019 and net profit for the year stood at €7.2 billion, a significant leap on 2019 due to tax realignment. When this is discounted, the final figure stands at €1.3 billion.
In focus
Among the Q4 highlights, revenues continued to fluctuate but demonstrated strength overall. Group revenues for Q4 amounted to €4.1 billion, down 2.1% organic year on year, but showed a 2.9 percentage point increase when compared to the previous quarter.
Group revenue from services came in at €3.7 billion, down 1.2% year on year, but up 5.2% quarter on quarter.
In domestic wholesale services revenues in Q4 were up 12.1% year on year, due to the ongoing migration of customers to ultrabroadband and the acquisition of new contracts over the quarter. Ultrabroadband net adds jumped 171% and total retail lines grew for the first time since 2001.
In fact in Q4, 437,000 new retail and wholesale ultrabroadband lines were activated, reaching 8.6 million units, a total increase of 24% year on year. Meanwhile, in the business segment, revenue growth associated with ICT, cloud and IT solutions accelerated 27.6% year on year, which TIM also attributed to its partnership with Google Cloud.
In mobile total lines increased by 5,000 in Q4 to reach 30.2 million by the end of the year, while machine-to-machine SIMs saw 103,000 new lines added and number portability finished at its "best result" since Q2, 2018.
In the fixed line segment, customer migration to ultrabroadband is accelerating, and in Italy's white areas, TIM has opened 18,000 new cabinets since March last year, delivering FTTx to 91% of Italian households with fixed lines.
Shareholders will meet on 31 March to appoint a new board and chief executive Luigi Gubitosi (pictured) has been nominated for another term.
Transforming TIM
TIM credited its financial performance to the ongoing transformation project it initiated two years ago.
After addressing the organisational structure and positioning of the business, six strategic initiatives saw "significant progress". They were: TIMVISION, the launch of FiberCop operations, the €1.6 billion sale of mobile tower assets, the launch of Noovle, the purchase of Oi Group's mobile assets in Brazil and the placement of the first €1 billion Sustainability Bond with an eight-year maturity, concluded in January 2021.
Looking ahead, TIM is working under a new strategy to 2023 and said in a statement it expected organic EBITDA after lease costs to either remain stable or show low single-digit growth in 2021.
