German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom said Thursday that profits fell by two thirds in 2011 as losses connected with the Greek crisis led to a net loss in the fourth quarter.

Deutsche Telekom said in a statement it booked bottom-line net profit of 557 million euros ($739 million) in 2011, a drop of 67.1 percent from a year earlier.

"This was due to a number of special factors in the fourth quarter, including writedowns in the United States and writedowns on goodwill and property, plant and equipment in southeastern Europe and Greece in particular," the group explained.

"That in total led to net loss in the three months to December of 1.34 billion euros," the statement said.

At an underlying level, operating profit fell by 4.0 percent to 18.685 billion euros in the whole of 2011, while revenues fell by 6.0 percent to 58.653 billion euros.

"In 2011, the company operated in a challenging environment in every respect, a situation that is not going to change this year," said chief executive Rene Obermann.

Looking ahead, Deutsche Telekom a decline in operating profit to around 18.0 billion euros this year on the back of anticipated higher costs in the US for the move into the next generation LTE networks.

spm/wai