Spanish operator Cellnex Telecom, Europe’s largest mobile towers company, reported revenues of EUR 358 million in the first quarter of 2020, up 49 percent year on year, with EBITDA surging 64 percent to EUR 260 million. Both figures were strongly impacted by the series of asset acquisitions made in 2019 in France and Italy (Iliad), Switzerland (Salt), the UK (BT), Ireland (Cignal) and Spain (Orange), as well as the purchase of OMTEL in Portugal, which closed on 02 January 2020. As a result, the company posted a net loss of EUR 30 million for the quarter due to the higher amortisations (up 91% year on year) and financial costs (up 34%) associated with the acquisition process and geographic expansion, a loss that’s set to continue in the coming quarters, said Cellnex.
Infrastructure services for mobile telecommunications operators contributed 76 percent of total income in the first 3 months of the year, amounting to EUR 273 million, up 71 percent year on year, while broadcasting services and infrastructure contributed EUR 59 million, or 17 percent of income. Finally, the segment comprising the company’s security and emergency service networks as well as its smart cities business contributed EUR 25 million, or 7 percent of revenues in Q1.
Cellnex said a total of 62 percent of its revenue and 71 percent of EBITDA were generated outside the Spanish market at 31 March. Italy remains the company’s second largest market, accounting for 23 percent of group revenues via 10,000-plus sites. In total Cellnex had some 40,207 operative sites at the end of March (10,284 in Spain, 10,194 in Italy, 9,325 in France, 921 in the Netherlands, 608 in the United Kingdom, 5,270 in Switzerland, 594 in Ireland and 3,011 in Portugal), plus a further 2,053 nodes (DAS and Small Cells). Points of Presence (PoPs) grew 5.5 percent year on year while the customer ratio per site was up 3 percent.
Looking ahead, Cellnex said the ongoing coronavirus crisis mean it will continue to deploy contingency and business continuity plans across the eight countries in which it operates in order to preserve the security and availability of the services it provides, while ensuring application of the strictest protection measures for its staff. In a statement, chairman Franco Bernabe underlined the “continuity and full availability of the services that Cellnex provides in the eight countries in which we operate, against the backdrop of social and economic disruption resulting from the coronavirus outbreak.”
