Spanish telecoms firm Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) reported fourth quarter earnings today. Fourth quarter profits rose to 1.06 billion euros ($1.6 billion) from 1.04 billion euros a year ago, with sales rising to 14.4 billion euros from 14.2 billion euros. Growth in Latin America helped Europe’s second largest telecoms firm offset costs relating to Spainish job cuts, reports Bloomberg. Yearly net profits, however, were up 43 percent, climbing to 8.906 million euros from a year ago. For 2008, Telefonica forecast sales growth of 6 percent to 8 percent, with operating income before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rising 7.5 percent to 11 percent. Telefonica is currently in the process of restructuring the company as its traditional wireline business shrinks. It has been trying to shift its focus on mobile telephony and broadband, as well as cutting its reliance on the declining Spanish market for more high-growth ones in Latin america and other parts of Europe. On Wednesday, Telefonica announced plans to buy back 100 million of its shares by the first half of 2009. At current prices the buyback is worth about 1.96 billion euros ($2.95 billion).(Release in PDF Form).

Other Highlights from Q4 include:

— Growth in mobile accesses at Telefonica climbed 16.6 percent year-on-year to 169.2 million total customers. In Brazil,  Telefonica added 2.2 million an almost seven-fold increase from the same period in 2006. In Mexico, it added nearly1.5 million customers, up 32 percent year-on-year. In Spain, net adds in the quarter totalled 406,837 up 6.4 percent compared with 2006, bringing the total customer base in Spain to 22.8 million. In Europe, Telefonica added 1 million customers in the quarter, up 8.6 percent, for a total European base (excluding Spain) of 38.3 million.

— Growth in mobile accesses at Telefonica climbed 16.6 percent year-on-year to 169.2 million total customers. In Brazil,  Telefonica added 2.2 million an almost seven-fold increase from the same period in 2006. In Mexico, it added nearly1.5 million customers, up 32 percent year-on-year.

— In Europe, Telefonica’s mobile business, Telefonica O2, added 1 million customers in the quarter, up 8.6 percent, for a total European base of 41.9 million, up 8.7 percent from 38.6 percent compared to 2006. Revenues in 2007 were up 9.9 percent to 14.46 million euros. In Spain, net adds in the quarter totaled 406,837 up 6.4 percent compared with 2006, bringing the total customer base in Spain to 22.8 million.

— O2 UK revenues rose 18.7 percent year-on-year in local currency. Gross additions rose 22 percent compared to the same period in 2006 with O2 UK adding a total of 483,000 net mobile customers in the quarter. O2 UK now has a total customer base of 18.4 million (excluding the Tesco Mobile customer base) representing growth of 4.2 percent year-on-year.

— O2 Germany saw revenues increase 6.7 percent year-on-year to come in at 3.54 million euros. Gross additions were up 63.3 percent year-on-year with 303,000 customers added in the fourth quarter, to bring the year’s total additions to 1.4 million taking the mobile customer base to 12.5 million—13.1 percent higher than at the same time last year.