By Valentine Baldassari
(Reuters) -French telecoms firm Iliad reported a nearly 13% rise in its half-year core earnings on Tuesday, driven by growth in all three countries it operates in and the integration of Polish broadband operator UPC.
Iliad, which billionaire Xavier Niel took private last year, said it was “keeping a vigilant eye” on the volatility of the financial and energy markets.
“We are faced with an unprecedented inflationary context on our supply costs and our energy costs, but I really have full confidence in (our) capacity for adaptation,” CEO Thomas Reynaud told reporters.
Asked about energy consumption, Reynaud said Iliad was making its equipment more energy efficient and had taken measures such as turning off certain frequency bands at night.
Iliad posted core earnings (EBITDA) after leases of 1.58 billion euros ($1.58 billion) in the first half of 2022, compared with 1.40 billion a year earlier.
Its French revenue increased by 6.6% to 2.71 billion euros, while Italy saw growth of 15.4% to 442 million euros.
The group said it had in April signed a network-sharing agreement with rival Wind Tre in Italy’s non-densely populated areas.
Iliad reported a 9.7% rise in half-year revenue in Poland, where it bought UPC last year and mobile operator Play in 2020.
It added 187,000 new subscribers in France in the second quarter and 257,000 new mobile customers in Italy despite a “fiercely competitive environment”.
“Overall Iliad is tracking commercially strongly at the expense of its major competitors in its major markets,” Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a note to clients.
“The strong trends in France broadband suggest that France’s fixed market is perhaps a bit more competitive than appreciated while Italy is likely to remain challenging for peers,” Credit Suisse added.
Iliad’s Free is one of France’s main mobile operators alongside Orange, SFR, and Bouygues Telecom. In Italy, it competes with the likes of Vodafone Italy and Telecom Italia.
($1 = 1.0001 euros)
(Reporting by Valentine Baldassari in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi)
