France's Iliad said its newly-launched Italian venture delivered an “exceptional commercial performance” in the third quarter, with customer numbers rising to 2.23 million at the end of September from 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 46 million to the parent company’s revenues in the July to September period, nearly 4 percent of the group’s total, adding to the EUR 9 million generated in its first month of activity.
In its statement, Iliad said its Italian unit had carried out a successful upscaling strategy since launching with a 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. At the end of September, Iliad Italia’s original offer had risen to EUR 7.99 a month for 50GB of mobile data plus unlimited calls and SMS, with the aggressive price war among all major operators showing no signs of abating.
The company was also keen to stress that the Iliad brand is already widely recognised in Italy, with four out of five Italians saying they knew the Iliad brand at end-September compared with one out of ten before the launch.
Iliad reiterated that it’s targeting EBITDA breakeven on a market share of less than 10 percent by the end of 2018.
