French telecom group Iliad reported revenue of EUR 4.72 billion in 2016, representing a 7.0 percent increase on 2015. Revenue growth in the fourth quarter progressed to 8.6 percent, compared to 6.5 percent in the previous quarter.
This improvement was supported by healthy mobile customer growth (315,000 net additions from 305,000 in Q3), coupled with the ongoing shift of the subscriber mix towards its higher-tier mobile package, as the EUR 19.99 tariff attracted 75 percent of mobile net additions over the course of 2016. The profitability of the group showed a solid improvement, with annual net profit of EUR 403 million, up 20 percent on 2015.
The overall mobile customer base reached 12.7 million, equivalent to an 18 percent market share (excluding M2M connections). Of the total, LTE connections increased to approximately 6 million (+60% on 2015), helped by an increased population coverage (76.4% at end-2016 from 63.0% a year earlier). Average monthly data consumption also remained on an upward trend, reaching 4.9 GB among LTE subscribers (+50% on 2015). The 3G coverage target has been met nearly a year ahead of schedule, as the 3G footprint reached nearly 90 percent of the population at end-2016.
Looking at fixed services, annual revenue stood at EUR 2.7 billion, representing growth of 3.6 percent. Revenue growth was reported at 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter, when the operator benefited from the ARPU boost resulting from the tariff refresh of its top-tier Revolution bundle, including the ‘TV by Canal Panorama’ package. As a result, fixed monthly ARPU improved to EUR 34.70, from EUR 33.50 in the previous quarter. The operator said that it is now the leading Canal Plus’ distributor in France, with more than 3 million subscriptions.
Free has consolidated its position as second largest fixed broadband provider in the country, behind Orange and ahead of SFR, with 6.39 million overall fixed broadband connections as of December 2016 (+58,000 since September). FTTH connections increased by 45,000 in the quarter to reach 310,000, over a network covering 4.4 million premises. The operator confirmed its objective to increase the availability of its FTTH services from 9 million premises at-end 2018 to 20 million by 2022.
