Iliad reported on its first-quarter revenue performance and unveiled the 2024 Odyssey plan, detailing its medium-term strategic goals in France and Italy. The group’s revenues rose to EUR 1.29 billion in the three months to March, up 7.7 percent year-on-year. This progression was mainly driven by its Italian operations, which launched commercially in May 2018. Iliad also benefited from higher device sales in France (+30.4%), linked to the new Freebox Delta Player STB, as well as the revenue contribution of French B2B operator Jaguar Network, in which the group acquired a majority stake in January.
In its core market of France, Iliad posted revenues of EUR 1.21 billion, up 1.0 percent on a reported basis and 0.2 percent organically (when excluding Jaguar Network’s EUR 10 million contribution). This compares to the 5 percent drop reported in the previous quarter. Mobile revenues invoiced to subscribers progressed to EUR 384 million, up 5.2 percent year-on-year (+1.1% in Q4).
While remaining in negative territory, the fixed line business saw the revenue drop ease to 2.7 percent, compared to a fall of 4.6 percent in Q4. The operator said that the quarter benefitted from the Youboox e-book promotion, launched at the end of January, boosting ARPU in both the fixed and mobile segments.
The French customer base continued to decline quarter-on-quarter across the fixed and mobile operations. The higher-tier mobile offer continued to achieve positive net additions (+75,000 versus +39,000 in Q4), partly offsetting the ongoing contraction in subscribers on the EUR 0 or EUR 2 mobile plan (-125,000 from -94,000). Overall, the mobile base declined by 50,000 to reach 13.39 million.
In the fixed market, Free lost customers for a fifth consecutive quarter, with subscriptions dropping by 16,000 (-32,000 in Q4) to 6.41 million. Of the total, FTTH connections increased by 150,000 since December to reach 1.13 million.
Iliad’s B2B division targets EUR 400-500 million in revenues by 2024
The French B2B market was described as one of the main pillars of the group’s 2024 Odyssey plan, representing a revenue opportunity of approximately EUR 10 billion annually. The group aims to capture a 4-5 percent share of this market by 2024, challenging the current Orange/SFR duopoly. In terms of infrastructure, it already owns more than 60,000 square meters of data centre space, under its subsidiary Scaleway.
Looking at the targets sets for its French mobile business, the operator aims to extend its cell sites footprint to 25,000 by 2024 and have over 80 percent of subscribers on the higher-tier mobile offer. It also plans to launch new tariff/handset offerings. In the fixed segment, the FTTH footprint is set to expand to around 30 million marketable premises, with a target of over 4.5 million FTTH subscribers by 2024.
The new strategy, presented at the group’s Capital Markets day, coincided with the announcement that Iliad has entered into exclusive negotiations with Spanish infrastructure operator Cellnex to sell parts of its mobile telecom infrastructure.
