Despite a difficult economic context, Iliad recorded solid performances in 2022. This is not a surprise, as Xavier Niel’s group was on a good dynamic during the first three quarters, before approaching the last three months of the he year was a prosperous period for operators with end-of-year celebrations conducive to the purchase of new smartphones, and therefore to the subscription of new packages.
In this context, Iliad ended its 2022 financial year with 45.9 million metered subscribers, including 2.7 new customers captured over the year as a whole. In France, where its subsidiary Free has 21.4 million subscribers, the company won 862,000 additional subscribers, including 607,000 on mobile. However, it was in Italy that Iliad recorded its strongest growth, with 1.2 million subscribers gained in one year.
To gain even more power in the Boot, the group tried to get hold of the Italian subsidiary of Vodafone for 11 billion euros, but the operator rejected the offer from the parent company of Free. The operation would have enabled the latter to control more than a third of the mobile market in Italy with a combined turnover close to six billion euros.
8.4 billion euros in revenue in 2022
At the financial level, Iliad’s good momentum in recruiting subscribers is reflected in revenue of 8.4 billion euros in 2022, up 10.3% compared to 2021. France, market history of Iliad, which still represents two-thirds of the group’s revenues, brought in 5.6 billion euros last year, with sales up 6.9%, while Poland (+19.2% ) and Italy (+15.5%) generated 1.9 billion and 927 million euros in revenue respectively.
With its performance in these three European countries, Iliad emerged from the past year with EBITDA after rents (the main indicator of operators’ profitability) up 12%, to 3.3 billion euros. As for net profit, it came out at 758 million euros, up 44.1%. Good performance to be confirmed in 2024, a year which promises to be even more perilous with an explosion of costs which weighs on the margins of operators thanks to galloping inflation on a global scale which does not seem ready to s ‘Stop.