Iliad sees strong revenue and sub growth despite pressure on costs

Iliad Group has turned in another strong quarter of subscriber and revenue growth, with revenues up 8% to €2.2 billion and growth in all three of its major markets – France, Poland and Italy.

Organic revenues in France were up 7.6% while Italy was up 12.6% and sales in Poland grew by 7.3%.

In France, Free added 172,000 mobile customers and 42,000 broadband customers. Fibre customers increased by 212,000.

In Italy, Iliad Italia added 282,000 net new mobile customers and 22,000 fixed broadband customer in the quarter.

In Poland the group finalized its Fiberco agreement to extend the sie of the addressable fixed market at the end of the quarter. Polish subsidiary Play meanwhile added, via the UPC cable network it acquired from Liberty Global, some 28,000 new fixed customers. The group also added 69,000 net new mobile customers, with growth in post-paid customers of 76,000 offsetting a decelerating decline in prepaid numbers of 6,000.

Iliad, which is not publicly listed, expressed satisfaction with its performance despite inflationary pressures on costs. It said that its EBITDAaL had increased on an organic proforma basis by 3.8% to €783 million. Operational free cashflow decline by €20 million year-on-year to land at €229 million.

“Iliad Group reaped the fruits of success in the first quarter, despite a difficult context of inflationary pressure. In the three countries where we operate, we are consolidating our position as leader in attracting new subscribers. And everywhere we are on the offensive, preparing for the future and opening new markets, notably in the enterprise segment which has to be a powerful driver of growth. We are investing in infrastructure and technology excellence. Everything is being put in place to become the most innovative of European operators,” said Thomas Reynaud, CEO.