Altice Europe had its strongest quarter in France in Q3 since 2005.
Moreover, it gained over 1 million customers in the year to September 30, equivalent to the number of customers lost in the last three years since the acquisition of SFR. Altice Europe also had its best quarter since 2012 in Portugal.
Altice Europe ended Q3 with 2,457,000 fibre/cable unique customers in France, representing a net add of 71,000. In other markets, it gained 44,000 in Portugal, ending September with 759,000, and lost 9,000 in Israel, with the number falling to 992,000. Its total fibre/cable homes passed was 11,865,000 in France, 4,372,000 in Portugal and 2,113,000 in Israel.
Commenting on the results, Patrick Drahi, founder of Altice, said: “Since the beginning of 2018, Altice Europe has continuously over-delivered on its operational turnaround plan, showing strong improvements in subscriber trends whilst signs of stabilisation sequentially in ARPU. We consistently demonstrate our ability to win our fair share of net adds. In France, we have won back more than a million customers already since the beginning of this year, i.e. the numbers of customers lost for the last 3 years (2015-2017) since the SFR acquisition. Our customers remain our first priority, and we have a unique asset base with expanding premium proprietary infrastructure in both fibre and mobile as well as content assets to further improve their satisfaction. Altice continues to benefit from the best-practices of its different assets worldwide, typically to launch a new box, benefitting from experience in leading market in telecom/contents (USA). We already see a tangible inflection in Portugal, paving the way for a recovery in France, underpinned by our strategy in infrastructure and content. Altice Europe will return to growth in 2019. On top of this commercial momentum, we continue to genuinely strengthen our long-term balance sheet position while crystalizing the underlying value of Altice Europe, notably its infrastructure. We have made further progress on the execution of our non-core asset disposal program and we have new streams of wholesale revenues secured. These are more than good results, with a winning team back in command.”
