Deutsche Telekom’s ailing US business again proved something of a dragnet during the second quarter, contributing heavily to a 26.7% fall in net profit.

The German incumbent’s profit fell to €348 million as T-Mobile USA accounted for more than half of a 6.8% fall in revenues during a quarter that management admits was less than sterling in terms of performance.

“Although these figures are not a cause for celebration, they still give us reason to be confident that we will achieve our targets in a persistently difficult environment,” chief René Obermann states.

Growing sales of smartphones fuelled a 13% rise in mobile internet revenues to €1.2 billion across all markets, however overall revenues in Germany fell 3.4% year-on-year, and by 5.5% in the firm’s other European markets. The operator points to economic problems in Romania and Greece as prime reasons for the decline, but notes that the situation in the latter market stabilized during the quarter.

T-Systems, the operator’s managed services arm, failed to translate a marginal improvement in revenue to profit, with EBITDA down 17.5% to €174 million.

Figures for the first half show that Deutsche Telekom is inline with incumbents in France and Spain with profit down by a third to €828 million.