Deutsche Telekom used its latest results release to announce plans to launch LTE services in the US starting in 2013, as it looks to counter tough competition in this market.

Following the break-up of its proposed merger with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom received “valuable mobile spectrum” in the US and US$3 billion in cash from its former suitor. It said that starting next year, it will use these frequencies alongside some refarmed spectrum, and make a US$1.4 billion network investment, to launch LTE services.

On a group level, the international operator said it had “met its financial targets for the 2011 financial year despite a difficult business environment for the telecommunications industry as a whole.”

In a statement, Rene Obermann, chairman of the board at DT, noted: “In 2011, the company operated in a challenging environment in every respect, a situation that is not going to change this year.”

DT said that the addition of more than 1 million contract mobile customers in Germany during the year “is ample proof of the attractiveness of the new rate plans and the success of efforts to boost activities in the service provider segment.” It noted that the number of smartphones as a proportion of total devices sold increased by 19 percentage points to 62 percent, with almost 500,000 iPhones sold in the fourth quarter alone – its biggest ever quarter for this device.

DT said that this strength in smartphones has translated into “unbroken growth in the mobile data segment,” with full-year mobile data revenue up 30 percent to EUR1.6 billion.

For its other European businesses, T-Mobile noted a “generally solid performance” in the fourth quarter, despite the difficult economic situation.

For T-Mobile USA, the company noted “significant challenges, particularly in the fourth quarter, following the market launch of the new Apple iPhone model by the three major national competitors in October.” In the fourth quarter alone, it lost 802,000 contract customers.

However, off the back of cost savings and new rate plans without subsidised handsets, the company saw a 3.4 percent rise in EBITDA during the fourth quarter. It is planning a re-launch of the T-Mobile brand, and is looking to improve its performance in the business sector.

For the full year, the company reported a net profit of EUR557 million, down from EUR1.7 billion, on revenue of EUR58.7 billion, down from EUR62.4 billion.

In the fourth quarter, it reported a net loss of EUR1.3 billion, compared with a prior-year Q4 loss of EUR514 million, on revenue of EUR14.9 billion, down from EUR15.5 billion.

The fourth quarter saw EUR3.3 billion of goodwill impairment in the US and Southeastern Europe, “notably Greece,” as a result of scheduled impairment tests.  This more than offset the EUR2.3 billion in cash and EUR0.9 billion worth of spectrum licences gained through the AT&T break-up.