Bouygues Telecom reported sales of €2,434 million in the first half of 2017, 6% more than in the first half of 2016. Sales from network also rose 6% to €2,084 million and sales from network excluding incoming traffic rose 7% over the period. The increase in data usage resulting from the decline in voice and text usage is leading to a decrease in sales from network generated by incoming traffic. However, there is no impact on EBITDA, since this decline in sales is offset by reduced interconnection costs.
EBITDA was up €139 million versus the first half of 2016 to €547 million. The EBITDA margin rose by 5.5 points year-on-year to 26.2%. Operating profit was €215 million higher at €210 million. It included non-current income of €48 million, mainly related to the capital gain on the sale of towers to Cellnex, which more than offset non-current charges related to the roll-out of network sharing.
Some highlights:
- In the first half of 2017, gross capex stood at €585 million, in line with the 2017 full-year gross capex target of €1.2 billion.
- Bouygues Telecom added 645,000 mobile customers in the first half of 2017, resulting in a total base of 13.6 million customers at end-June 2017.
- There were over 10 million mobile plan customers excluding MtoM at end-June 2017, with 240,000 new adds in the first half of 2017, of which 110,000 in the second quarter.
- In the fixed market, Bouygues Telecom signed up 133,000 new customers in the first half of 2017, of which 45,000 in the second quarter.
- Bouygues Telecom confirms its target of 1 million additional fixed customers by end-2017 versus end-2014. The Miami FTTH offer accounted for close to two-thirds of net growth in the second quarter of 2017. As a result, Bouygues Telecom had 171,000 FTTH customers at end-June 2017, more than twice as many as at end-June 2016.
- Bouygues Telecom is continuing to roll out FTTH, with 16 million premises secured at end-June 2017, 7 million more than at end-2016, and 2.6 million premises marketed, 0.6 million more than at end-2016. Bouygues Telecom confirms its target of 12 million premises marketed in 2019 and 20 million in 2022. In all, Bouygues Telecom had 552,000 very-high-speed customers at end-June 2017.
