EIRCOM, Ireland’s dominant fixed-line telephone company, made a €2 million (£1.3 million) pre-tax profit in the first quarter of this year after spending more than €48 million on a restructuring that cost 400 jobs.
Eircom’s shares, which were listed on the Dublin stock exchange at €1.55 in March, rose 0.2 cents to €1.48.
Philip Nolan, Eircom’s chief executive, said: “In a tough environment, we have grown profitability significantly, both at earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and operating levels and have continued capital investment at planned levels.”
There was no update on Eircom’s attempts to break into Ireland’s mobile phone market.
Eircom, which sold its mobile arm, Eircell, to Vodafone three years ago, is desperate to re-enter the market and has called on the Irish Government for help.
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Eircom had pegged its future profitability on persuading its 1.6 million fixed-line customers to buy broadband internet packages. The take-up, however, has been slow.
Mr Nolan said there were 53,000 broadband customers at the end of the first quarter, which had risen to 73,000 by this week. He said he was confident of reaching Eircom’s target of 100,000 customers by the end of this year.
Eircom’s first-quarter profit compared with a €16 million loss the previous corresponding quarter.
Turnover was down 2 per cent to €402 million because of reduced voice and data traffic volumes and a reduction in some tariffs .
Revenue from voice traffic, which makes up almost a third of Eircom’s revenue, fell 11 per cent as more and more users in Ireland turned to mobile phones instead.