MILAN (Reuters), – Shares In Telecom Italia The (MI:/TIM) dropped as high as 7.9% Thursday, a nearly one-year-low. This was after Italy’s largest telecoms company further reduced its core profit guidance for 2021 to reflect the worsening market conditions.

This cuts puts pressure on Luigi Gubitosi the Chief Executive, who was elected to a second term by TIM’s major investors, French media company Vivendi and CDP, which he won in February. A source close to Vivendi stated that the company was committed to TIM despite disappointing results late Wednesday.

TIM reported that its earnings before tax, interest, amortization, and depreciation (EBITDA/AL) will drop to mid-single digits this year from a forecast for a lower-to-mid single digit decrease.

The announcement comes after the company said that it will not stabilize core profits this year.

TIM also pushed back a goal for domestic service revenues to stabilize in 2021. They forecast a small single-digit drop.

Analysts at Banca Akros stated in a note that the Guidance Cut, although not entirely unexpected, “signals an extremely difficult scenario” and would trigger more estimates to be downgraded.

TIM, like other European competitors, is facing fierce price competition in its crowded domestic market which represents nearly 80%.

TIM hopes that it can address some of the domestic problems by creating so-called “adjacent business units”, such as cloud, cybersecurity, and Internet of Things ventures. TIM is also considering other options, including possible alliances with investors and potential new investments, for its network assets and services.

EBITDA-AL declined 7.6% in the third quarter to 1.46 billion euro, which was just below the analyst consensus of 1.47 billion. Domestic revenue fell by 3.2% in the third quarter, which was consistent with analysts’ expectations.

After hitting 0.31 euro earlier, the stock fell 5.6% to 0.32 Euro by 0710 GMT. The lowest level seen since early November 2020.

($1 = 0.8624 euros)