Unisource NV, the European alliance between PTT Telecom of The Netherlands, Telia of Sweden and Swiss Telecom has reported revenue for 1996 up 85% at $1.2bn, but net losses down 17% to $194m. But it says that it will break even by the end of the century. Much of the revenue growth last year came directly from the acquisition of Unisource Espa?a which, says the company, made a substantial contribution to the increase although growth in the home country markets and in other European target markets such as Belgium, France, Germany and Italy reported revenue growth. Unisource says losses were due to significant investments and the further expansion of its international backbone network. Financial results were in line with expectations commented recently appointed Chief Financial Officer Jan de Vries. The deepest part of our investment curve was reached in 1996. We are now on the upward track to break-even. The company expects a ten billion-guilder ($5.2bn) revenue by the turn of the century, by which time break-even will be reached. The bulk of the losses were from the results of the international communications services activities. Most notably costs related to the introduction of voice services and the creation of the business infrastructure had an impact on these results. A significant part of these costs is non-recurring. Unisource merged other operations of Unisource and AT&T under the AT&T-Unisource banner and the resulting company went operational in 1996. Unisource says it has nearly 1,000 voice and data customer contracts with large multinational companies. Unisource Carrier Services is expected to triple its traffic in 1997 over 1996. It is becoming the carrier’s carrier. I also expect revenues in our current AT&T-Unisource business to nearly double by the end of the year, against a total market growth of only 16 percent, said Unisource President and chief executive officer, Paul Smits.
