French telecommunications group Iliad reported consolidated revenues of EUR 1.02 billion in the first half of the year, up 4.6 percent on EUR 969.9 million in the year-earlier period. This is the first time it has reached over EUR 1 billion in interim turnover. The company's consumer operations increased sales by 5.3 percent to EUR 1 billion, led by Free up 11.1 percent to EUR 869.2 million. Alice, whose customer base is being migrated to Free, saw its revenues fall by 21.4 percent to EUR 135.4 million over the same period. Iliad opened over 200 new local loop unbundling nodes in the first six months of the year taking its unbundling rate to 87.5 percent at the end of June, up from 81.2 percent a year earlier. Iliad's turnover from business customers fell by 42.6 percent to EUR 5.4 million and its traditional telephony operations generated sales up 2 percent to EUR 20.4 million. Iliad had 4.51 million ADSL subscribers at the end of June, up from 4.46 million six months earlier and 4.37 million at the end of June 2009. Free boosted its ADSL customer base to 3.9 million from 3.78 million and 3.59 million, respectively, while Alice's decreased to 611,000 from 678,000 and 782,000. Free says had an approximately 20 percent share of new additions in the quarter. Group ARPU has reached around EUR 36.30 per month, owning to a rise in audiovisual ARPU from growing use of existing services and the launch of new offerings. Some 4.9 million VoD and SVoD registrations were made in the first half, up 24 percent on the year-earlier period. Telephony ARPU fell due to the addition of new destinations, such as Morocco, to the flat-rate triple-play package and the decline in fixed termination rates.
