Drop in profits for telecom firm

Paris: France Telecom SA said it sees a drop in profit margins this year as it gears up for a mobile-phone rival in its home market in 2012.

France’s biggest phone company, which reported 2010 profit that was slightly better than analyst expectations, said it sees a 1% point slide in 2011 margins for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation.

The “risk profile in both fixed and mobile is increasing” in the French market, Saeed Baradar, a telecommunications sales specialist at Societe Generale in London, wrote.