Telecom Argentina SA said second-quarter profits jumped 35 percent over the same period last year as sales of mobile phone and Internet service climbed.
The Buenos Aires-based telephone company said net income rose to 341 million pesos (US$111.4 million) in the quarter ending June 30, compared to 252 million pesos (US$82.4 million) in the same period last year.
Sales rose 20 percent over the year-ago period to 2.6 billion pesos (US$840.2 million), led by mobile phone services, which accounted for two-thirds of total revenue. Broadband Internet service comprised 9 percent of revenue, the company said late Tuesday.
Rising mobile phone and Internet sales made up for losses in fixed-line customers, many of whom are opting to communicate by mobile phone or text and instant messaging. Telecom's mobile phone customers increased by 16 percent in the first half of the year, while the number of broadband subscribers climbed by 50 percent over the year-ago period, the company said.
Telecom Argentina is the third-largest mobile phone service provider in Argentina, where three of the region's top telecommunications companies are battling to control phone service to Latin America's third-largest economy.
Telecom _ controlled by Telecom Italia's Nortel group and an Argentine investor group known as Los W _ holds 28.5 percent of Argentina's mobile phone market, behind Telefonica's Movistar and Mexico City-based America Movil's Argentine unit, Claro.
Madrid-based Telefonica is the largest telecommunications company in Spain and Latin America.
