Euskaltel sees strong take up of Virgin telco as it posts record profits

Euskaltel CEO José Miguel García unveiling the Virgin telco brand earlier this year

Spanish cable operator Euskaltel’s second quarter performance was boosted by what it said was record growth in profits and its customer base, with the latter boosted by the addition of the first 6,500 customers to join under the Virgin telco brand it is using for its national expansion.

In the three months to June, Euskaltel gained 11,300 new customers, 4,800 in the Group’s traditional markets and 6,500 from Virgin telco one months after the launch of the brand. In total, the Group has a fixed-service customer base of 681,000 users.

Euskaltel said that Virgin telco’s momentum had been maintained in July despite the effect of seasonality.

Spanning its core northern Spanish markets and its national reach, primarily via Orange’s network, Euskaltel said that it  currently has access to 19 million homes in Spain, a figure that will grow further in the coming months, both in the traditional markets -Basque Country, Galicia and Asturias- and in the pilot projects in Navarre, Catalonia, La Rioja, Cantabria and León, as well as in the rest of the country,

Residential services contracted rose by 40,000 on the same period of the prior year in Q2 2020, Euskaltel customers signed up for an average of 3.69 products per user.

Broadband customers grew by 11,000 new service contracts to reach 607,000. Pay TV services rose by 8,000 to just under 500,000 TV products contracted. Mobile phone services increased by 20,000 lines to 1.18 million mobile telephone lines contracted and landline phone customers rose by 1,000 to reach 601,000.

Euskaltel posted like-for-like EBITDA of €91.8 million for the quarter, up 8.8% on the previous year. It made a net profit of €16.4 million as compared with €11 million last year.