Wanadoo has reported a 38% rise in revenue for Q1.
Consumer demand for broadband access continues to gather pace, with French Internet service provider Wanadoo reporting a 38% rise in revenue, mainly as a result of strong growth for broadband Internet access and online advertising.
For the first quarter ending March 31, the Paris, France-based ISP reported revenue up 38% at E567 million. Net income figures were not provided.
Both of Wanadoo’s core segments recorded revenue growth. Revenue for the Internet Access, Portals, e-Merchant segment surged 58%. This rise was mainly down to the 61% rise in Internet access revenue to E393 million. Directories revenue rose 9%.
Commenting on these results, Wanadoo chairman and chief executive officer Olivier Sichel said: Wanadoo’s first-quarter 2003 revenue put us on track to meet our objective of 25% to 30% revenue growth in 2003.
Wanadoo is the second largest ISP in Europe after T-Online. It has approximately 8.79 million customers in Europe, including 1.61 million subscribers to its broadband service (ADSL and cable). It added 251,000 new customers during the first quarter of 2003, of which 239,000 signed up for broadband service. Broadband customers represented 18.4% of the total Wanadoo Internet Access customer base at March 31, up from 16.1% at December 31.
Internet access was also helped by a 16% rise in average revenue per user to E17 in France, and a 40% increase in the UK to E8.1. Also, it reported a low churn rate for broadband customers in its key European markets.
However, there are some concerns regarding Wanadoo’s UK unit, Freeserve, which added 188,000 subscribers, bringing its total subscriber base to 2.67 million. Out of this figure, only 19,000 broadband subscribers were added during the quarter, bringing its total broadband subscriber base to 68,000. This is poor when compared to the 300,000 users of BTOpenWorld.
Source: Computerwire/Datamonitor
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