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Group hails performance of Portugal Telecom and Suddenlink following ‘challenging’ quarter in France.
Altice said the first three months proved somewhat challenging in France amid a continuing high level of promotion activity, but said international units including Portugal Telecom and recently acquired Suddenlink helped mitigate the overall group performance.
Group revenue fell by 2.7% year on year to €4.26 billion in the first quarter of 2016. The company, which owns the French Numericable-SFR group, said revenue in France fell by 6.1 per cent to €2.57 billion while international revenue grew by 1.3 per cent to €1.14 billion.
Portugal Telecom reduced its quarterly revenue decline to 3.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2016 from 8.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015. U.S. revenue (Suddenlink) increased 9% on a reported basis to €570 million.
Group adjusted EBITDA increased by 0.9 per cent to €1.615 billion, although in France adjusted EBITDA was 9 per cent lower at €851 million. International adjusted EBITDA was up 12.6 per cent, boosted by a 20.9 per cent rise in adjusted EBITDA in Portugal.
SFR published separate results that also showed the French operator posted a net loss of €41 million in the quarter. This was down from a net profit of €743 million in the first quarter of 2015.
Altice CEO Dexter Goei said it had been a “challenging quarter in France but we are confident that our accelerated network investment program, content-enriched service offering and operational improvements will deliver improving results throughout 2016 under the new management.”
He added that Portugal Telecom is well on track to “become the bellwether operator in the European communications space”, and said the group was “excited” about Suddenlink’s performance in the first full quarter of ownership and its growth prospects.
“We look forward to successfully concluding the Cablevision regulatory approval process and closing the acquisition in Q2 2016,” Goei said.
