He doesn't plan to transfer cost increases to customers. Over the first nine months of the year, Telefonica booked a record 9.34 billion euro net profit, mainly because of capital gains made on the sale of its Telxius tower unit and the tie-up of its O2 unit and Virgin Media in Britain. Overall revenue fell 11% in the third quarter from the same period a year ago as the company has become significantly smaller as a result of asset sales, but core earnings rose 40%. "We maintained the momentum of year-on-year organic revenue and (core profit) growth for the second consecutive quarter," Chief Executive Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete said in a statement. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected net profit of 568 million euros in the third quarter. Telefonica reiterated that it expects revenue and core profit to be "stable" or see "slight growth" in 2021, in line with an announcement last quarter.