France’s Iliad hit as price competition gets tougher
FRENCH telecoms group Iliad, struggling to keep market share as larger rivals go on marketing offensives, yesterday reported a five per cent rise in third-quarter revenue as growth at its Free brand offset weakness in Alice.
Iliad, which sells low-cost bundles of TV, internet and fixed-line telephony in France, said yesterday that third-quarter revenue rose to €511m (£432.4m).
The company, which does not offer mobile phone services, has been struggling against larger rivals Bouygues Telecom France Telecom, and Vivendi unit SFR which have all started selling “quadruple-play” bundles with mobile, fixed-line, broadband and TV.
Over the period, Iliad signed 36,000 new clients, a slowdown from 125,000 in the first half. Iliad said it had 4.53m broadband subscribers as of the end of September, with nearly 4m on Free. Its Alice broadband unit continued to struggle.