BUDAPEST: Hungarian group Magyar Telekom said it may outperform its forecast for revenue to fall 0-2 per cent this year after it rose in the first nine months.

 The Deutsche Telekom unit also reported a 10.8 per cent rise in quarterly net profit, beating expectations for a decline and helped by one-off income from real estate transactions, the sale of a unit, and cost cuts.

“On the revenue side things are definitely going better than we expected, which has a lot to do with the revenue mix we generated,” chief financial officer Thilo Kusch told reporters on Thursday.

“We are definitely at the upper end (of the guidance), maybe even better,” he said, adding energy resale was one business segment that had performed better than expectations.

Third-quarter net profit was 14.77 billion forints ($67 million), compared with a forecast for 11.73 billion in a survey by financial news website portfolio.hu. Quarterly revenue fell 1.3 per cent to 150 billion forints, in line with expectations.

Revenue for the first nine months was up 0.9 per cent at 442 billion forints, while underlying EBITDA adjusted for special costs fell 2.9 per cent to 182 billion.

Reuters