Euskaltel posts strong revenue and profit growth

Spanish cable operator Euskaltel has posted strong revenue and profit growth for the first half of the year on the back of increased subscriber numbers and falling churn.

Francisco Arteche

Euskaltel posted revenues of €349.3 million for the first six months of the year, up 25%. EBITDA was up 22.4% to €168.8 million, with a revenue margin of 48.3%.

Operating cash-flow was up 10% to €100.8 million, which the company said would be 31.3% if its current expansion programme into adjacent regional markets was not taken into consideration.

The operator reported a net profit for the first half of €28.8 million, up 36.6%.

Euskaltel added 9,000 new pay TV customers in the quarter to June, taking its total to 408,000, which the company said had been boosted by ints introduction of a new 4K Android set-top. Euslaktel said it expected the TV base to grow further thanks to the launch a Netflix button on its TV remote control, a first in the Spanish market.

Euskaltel signed up 4,000 new broadband customers in the quarter to June, taking its total to 496,000.

Euskaltel said it was now targeting 4,000 additional customers by the end of the year in Navarre, the region in which it recently began marketing services using Orange’s network. The company reported it had had signed up 1,000 new customers in the region since launching there.

Euskaltel said it had distributed a dividend of €49.6 million to shareholders against its 2017 profit, reflecting a 3.8% return. The company had been subject to criticism from shareholder Zegona Communications, the former owner of Asturias region operator Telecable acquired by Euskaltel in 2017. Zegona, which holds a 15% stake in the combined company, had accused the operator of failing to  take sufficient action to improve its performance.

“We have met the objectives we announced to the market, building on the growth seen in the first quarter and becoming one of the few operators to achieve better results in the second quarter than in the first quarter of the year,” said Euskaltel CEO Francisco Arteche.