Europe's second-largest phone company Telefonica SA reported better-than-expected 22 per cent increase in its fourth-quarter profit due to revenue growth in Latin America.

For the fourth quarter of 2009 the company's net income rose 22.2 per cent to EUR 2.65 billion from EUR 1.99 billion for the same period in previous financial year.

Revenue for the fourth quarter climbed up by 1.2 per cent to EUR 14.98 billion from EUR 14.8 billion in the year-ago period. On quarterly basis the company recorded a decline in revenue in both wireline and wireless segments.

Revenue from the Latin American market increased 8 per cent to 6.33 billion euros, where as operations in Spain suffered and sales declined to 5.05 billion euros.

According to the company, total access increased 5.1 per cent to around 265 million euros with sharp rise in mobile, fixed broadband and payTV Mobile broadband accesses.

For fiscal year 2010, the company expects revenue growth in the range of one to four per cent for the full year.