Bouygues Telecom ups target after solid first half

Bouygues Telecom

French service provider Bouygues Telecom “maintained good commercial momentum” in the first half of 2022 according to its parent company.

The telco added 81,000 fixed-line customers in the first half

of the year, taking its total base to 4.5 million.

The company had 2.6 million FTTH customers at end-June 2022, thanks to 315,000 new adds in the first six months. The proportion of fixed customers subscribing to an FTTH plan rose to 58% versus 45% one year earlier.

At end-June 2022, mobile plan customers excluding MtoM were 15 million, up 193,000 new customers in the first half.

Sales billed to customers totalled €2.7 billion, up 6% versus the first half of 2021, thanks to the customer growth and growth in revenue per unit.

Sales from services rose by 3% year-on-year. Other sales rose 12% year-on-year, driven by growth in sales on handsets and network roll-outs.

In total, the operator’s sales increased by 5% versus the first half of 2021.

EBITDA after leases (EBITDAaL) rose €72 million, up 9%, versus end-June 2021 to €830 million.

Gross capex at end-June 2022 was €869 million, up €115 million year-on-year.

The solid results enabled the telco to up its targets. It now expects EBITDAaL growth of over 8%, up from around 7%. Gross capital expenditure was confirmed at €1.5 billion, excluding 5G frequencies.

Bouygues Telecom, along with other French telcos, has criticised incumbent operator Orange’s plans for the progressive shutdown of the country’s copper network infrastructure as fibre is rolled out to more areas.

Elsewhere in its consolidated results, parent company Bouygues noted that commercial broadcaster TF1, which it also owns, had not been significantly hit by inflation and the Ukraine conflict in the first half.

Bouygues said that in the second half of the year, the TF1 group would continue to adapt its costs in line with market developments, with a boost expected from the football World Cup at the end of 2022. The broadcaster’s planned merger with rival M6 has been thrown into question after competition watchdog the Autorité de la Concurrence raised concerns about its impact.

TF1 last week posted solid first half numbers, with 5.2% growth to €1.187 billion.

The broadcaster saw solid growth in advertising revenues and from its Newen Studios production unit. However ad sales in the second quarter were down year on year due to a comparison with a quarter that had shown solid revenues coming from coverage of the Euro 2020 football competition.

TF1 also confirmed the sale of its majority stake in influencer marketing agency Ykone to Future Technology Retail.