France’s Iliad Group has posted strong year-on-year growth across revenue and earnings during the first quarter.Consolidated revenues across its French, Polish and Italian operations rose 11.2%1 to €2.43 billion in the first quarter, with consolidated EBITDAaL up 12.2% to €878 million. Operating free cash flow also doubled to €460 million.In France, revenue rose by 10% and EBITDAaL increased significantly by 15%. The company’s fibre operator, Free, gained 212,000 net new Mobile subscribers in France during Q1. Following the launch of the Freebox Ultra Wi-Fi 7 box, the provider gained 85,000 net new Broadband and Ultra-fast Broadband subscribers, and 232,000 new Fiber subscribers.Iliad saw revenue climb by 12.8% and EBITDAaL rise by 11.7% in Italy. The company also picked up 276,000 net new subscribers in the mobile market and drew 38,000 new subscribers in the fixed market in Italy during the first quarter.Revenues for Poland soared by 13.8% in Q1, EBITDAaL for Poland was also 5.5% higher, but decreased 2.5% in local currency. Iliad’s polish provider Play also added 73,000 net new mobile subscribers.Xavier Niel, owner of Iliad Group, is reportedly currently considering to make an offer to take control of Latin American service provider Millicom. The media tycoon has recently acquired stakes in Sweden’s Tele2, Belgium’s Proximus and Ukraine’s Volia.Thomas Reynaud, Iliad’s chief executive officer, said: “The first quarter of 2024 marked a very good start to the year for the iliad Group. We delivered not only in terms of sales performance, by continuing to win market share, but also in terms of operating performance, by tightly controlling our costs. The Group is radically changing scale – from a technological perspective, thanks to our promising investments in the Freebox Ultra, the Cloud, AI and new data centers, and from a geographical perspective. Having become Tele2’s reference shareholder, we are now present in eight European countries. Forming part of Europe’s Top 5 telcos is within our reach, and as from this year!”
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