Iliad is to recover the No. 2 spot on the French broadband market, behind France Télécom’s Orange, after acquiring Alice, ending Telecom Italia’s ill fated five-year French venture
VMed’s Q1 results represent a further step in the recovery of the core cable business, with markedly lower churn and strong growth in operating cash flow (OCF)
Carphone Warehouse had a solid quarter, and its expectation of a currency-aided 9-10% growth rate in 2008/2009 distribution revenue looks achievable, as does guidance of 4-5% growth in fixed line revenue, unless loss of telephony-only customers accelerates
Iliad will be challenged to meet its target of a steady EBITDA margin of 36% in 2008 despite further cuts in mobile termination charges due to the continued drift of the subscriber mix to higher cost (for Iliad) full telephony packages. Some benefit to cash flow could result from reduced charges for one-off LLU services to be mandated by regulator ARCEP
Growth in ARPU is reinforcing the impact of improving cable subscriber growth, but revenue remains in decline, year-on-year
France is the first major European market where a large scale fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) deployment is under way. Numericable and France Télécom, as well as unbundlers Iliad and Neuf Cegetel, are launching triple play offers over fibre to households. Public authorities actively support the plans, to boost France's growth prospects. This report examines the commercial context for fibre deployment in France
Distribution growth improved considerably (retail grew 13% versus 8% last quarter), with strong contract sales more than counteracting a relatively weak prepay performance