France's Iliad described the performance of its Italian venture in the 7 months since launching as “a resounding commercial success”, with customer numbers growing to 2.8 million at the end of December from 2.2 million in September and 1.5 million in early August. Iliad entered the Italian market as the country’s fourth mobile network operator on 29 May and the new unit contributed a total of EUR 125 million to the parent company’s revenues in the July to December period. The Italian unit’s operating losses came to EUR 52 million in the 7 months following an investment of EUR 261 million on network rollout and EUR 342 million on frequencies, said Iliad in its fourth-quarter results statement.
Iliad claimed the launch was the most successful in Europe for a new entrant since that of Free Mobile in France back in 2012 thanks to its ability to put in place a “straightforward, transparent and innovative” sales model for Italy, starting with its initial no-frills offer of 30GB of mobile data plus unlimited calls and SMS for EUR 5.99 a month for the first 1 million customers.
The parent company added that the Iliad brand is already a household name in Italy, with nine out of Italians saying they knew the brand at end-December compared with one out of ten before the launch. Iliad said it’s continuing to roll out a mobile network throughout Italy in order to switch to a fixed-cost model as quickly as possible and reiterated a target of achieving EBITDA breakeven on a market share of less than 10 percent. It’s also aiming to reach 3,500 equipped sites by the end of 2019.
