Altice Europe saw revenue growth in all its business segments in the last quarter of 2019.
This was underpinned by another quarter of solid commercial momentum, with the residential fixed base growing by 44,000. The number of fibre customers increased by 78,000 and 45% of the total fixed subscriber base was on fibre.
Altice France saw revenue growth of 13.3% and EBITDA growth of 19.6% year-on-year in Q4. Meanwhile, in Portugal the residential fixed base grew by 2,000, with fixed and mobile churn maintained at the lowest levels ever.
Fibre customer net additions were up 35,000, continuing to be supported by the ongoing expansion of fibre coverage. Meo reported an improved revenue trend in of +3.3% year-on-year and an EBITDA decline of -1.1% year-on-year in Q4.
Altice Europe as a whole saw its revenues grow by 11.2% year-on-year in Q4, while EBITDA was up 14.8% year-on-year.
Commenting on the results, Patrick Drahi, Altice Europe founder said: “During this challenging period where we all face the implications of the pandemia, I want to personally thank each of our employees, many of whom remain active on the ground as well as those who are working from home, to provide our customers with key services of connectivity and information. We are placing the utmost focus at Altice Europe on the protection and safety of all our employees and those of our subcontractors too. We have taken several steps to ensure that the residential and business customers that we serve continue to have reliable access to critically important connectivity services as well as quality real time news and information during this period. In 2019 we achieved an acceleration in revenue growth in all of our geographies. In Altice France, our strong Q4 results were supported by growth across all segments, including residential revenue growth year over year for the third successive quarter which is now significantly accelerating in the first months of 2020. The strong financial performance in Q4 and FY 2019 has been underpinned by the successful operational turnaround achieved by the new management teams, put in place 2 years ago. We exceeded our FY 2019 guidance and will continue to focus on deleveraging Altice Europe through growing revenue and EBITDA in FY 2020. We have continued to invest and expand our proprietary best-in-class infrastructure, commensurate with Altice Europe’s leading position in each market. Over the last months, we have signed important partnerships which will bring €1.8 billion of cash proceeds in the first half of 2020. Over the last six months, we have also closed €4.9 billion of refinancing, at record low rates for the Group, locking in significant interest savings as well as achieving the simplification of the Group capital structure through the removal of Altice Luxembourg HoldCo, a long-standing objective for the Group. The Group’s diversified capital structure has no material maturity before 2025 and available liquidity of nearly €5 billion. We have entered FY 2020 with a strong performance so far this year, and we are very confident that we are going to build on the improved financial performance of FY 2019 while prevailing from an unprecedented crisis.”
