Iliad picking the fruits of recovery of Alice in H1
- on 08.31.10
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Iliad Tuesday reported a significant improvement in profitability in the first half thanks to a quicker recovery than expected from its subsidiary, Alice, restructuring since it was bought 18 months ago.
The Internet service provider, which owns the brand Free, has published a net profit of 171.4 million euros, signing an improvement of 27% of its EBITDA in the first half to 391.6 million euros, including a contribution of 38 million Alice.
"I consider that today the financial recovery of Alice is finalized," said Thomas Reynaud, CFO of Iliad, in a telephone interview with Reuters.
The subsidiary, acquired in 2008 by Telecom Italia, showed a further erosion of its subscriber base in the first half of 2010, but various measures to cut costs have helped improve the profit.
"All the measures we have taken over the last 18 months are now paying on the repositioning of the offer, the increase in the rate unbundling (…), and we did play economies scale and synergies with Free, "said Thomas Reynaud.
Iliad has confirmed its financial and operational targets for short and medium term, which include free cash flow ADSL accumulated over 1.1 billion euros between 2010 and 2012, incorporating Alice, a growing "double digit" of Ebitda in 2010 and "a very strong increase in net profit" on the same period.
The group had already published in early August 1st half sales up 4.6% to 1.015 billion euros, reported in late June with a market share of 20% marks for his conquests Free, the number of subscribers totaled 3.9 million while.
ROAD TO THE MOBILE
Iliad, which is the pioneer offer "triple play" – phone, internet and television – about 30 euros in France, faces competition from increasingly strong in the area.
The French market has emerged in particular offer "quadruple play" – phone, internet, television and mobile – in May 2008 Bouygues Telecom and in August 2010 in the incumbent France Telecom, the market leader.
SFR, whose parent company Vivendi will publish its interim results on Wednesday 1 September, claimed the top spot in the first quarter in terms of winning new subscribers in the fixed (DSL), and although he has not launched a "quadruple play" the operator placed on cross-selling.
"I believe today that offers 'quadruple play' offers that are relatively expensive.If ultimately offers quadruple play should become the standard, we would be able to replicate these offers through our mobile license, "said Thomas Reynaud.
The project Free Mobile will see its first commercial offerings in the mobile appear in 2012, Iliad who won the fourth mobile license in France.
For now, the deployment of a mobile network takes place "under the roadmap" of the group, said its chief financial officer.
He also said that negotiations were continuing with the three groups of telecom competitors to sign a roaming agreement on their networks, enabling the new operator makes sense to market its first tender in 2012 before he deployed all his own antennas.
The Iliad as closed Monday down 0.56% to 69.50 euros. It yields about 16% since the beginning of the year, compared with a slight increase of 2% for the telecom sector index.