During the third quarter of this year, the Telefónica Group recorded losses of € 160 million, mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the intensification of exchange rate changes and an impairment assigned to Telefónica de Argentina, for € 785 million.
In measuring the values ??at the underlying level, a € 734 million profit was recorded. To a large extent the final result was mitigated by a reduction in costs and especially in investment levels.
The group's revenues in the quarter reached a total of € 10.461 billion, which represents a 12.1% decrease compared to the same period of the previous year. Revenues by geographic units were as follows: Spain, € 3.103 billion, with a 4.3% decrease compared to the same quarter of 2019. Germany, € 1.873 billion (+ 0.4%); United Kingdom, € 1.596 billion (- 10%); Brazil, € 1.720 billion (- 31.4%); Hispam, € 1.903 billion (-13.6%; and Telxius, € 194 million (-2.8%).
Oibda in the third quarter totaled € 2.672 billion, which represents a 2.8% decrease compared to the same period in 2019. Oibda's margin stood at 25.5%, 2.4% above the level registered in the same period last year.
The level of investments (Capex) in the quarter was € 1.346 billion, with a 58.9% decrease compared to the same quarter of last year, which mainly served to mitigate the deterioration registered in income. The group's financial debt at the end of last September amounted to € 36.676 billion.
At the end of the quarter, Telefónica had a total of 341.49 million accesses, which represents a 1.2% decrease compared to the same period in 2019. Of this total, 318.4 million (-1.8%) corresponded to retail accesses and 36.67 million to wholesale accesses (+ 7.4%). Discrimination by services was as follows: fixed telephony, 28.88 million (-10.7%); broadband, 20.21 million (-4.9%); mobile telephony, 260.87 million (-0.4%, of which 25.22 million correspond to the Internet of Things; Pay TV, 8.14 million (-5.4%).
In Hispam's business unit, which corresponds to all of Latin America except Brazil, the group registered a total of 106.061 million accesses (-6.5%), almost all of which are retail accesses. Fixed telephony registered a total of 7.98 million accesses (-13.6%), broadband had 5.40 million accesses (-5.7%); mobile telephony reached 89.65 million (-5.8%) of which 3.84 million corresponded to the Internet of Things and pay TV had 2.85 million accesses (-8.1%).
Revenues in the region reached a total of € 1.903 billion (-13.6%) of which € 1.232 billion were contributed by the mobile business, with a 12.2% decrease compared to the same period of the previous year, while the fixed business had revenues of € 721 million (-9.8%). The level of investment in the region was € 155 million, with a 51.1% decrease.