SFR Q1 Revenues Up 31% - Sells 120,000 iPhone Handsets

France's Vivendi Group has reported a 6.9% drop in first-quarter adjusted net profits to EUR 649 million (US$883 million) due to interest costs on higher debt. Interest payments reached EUR 108 million, up from EUR 37 million a year ago.

Quarterly sales rose to EUR 6.5 billion, an increase of 23.7% and 22.1% at constant currency compared to the first quarter of 2008., while net income decreased 14 percent to EUR 477 million.

SFR, the group's French mobile network saw revenues increase by 31.5% to EUR 3.03 billion compared to the same period in 2008, due to the consolidation of Neuf Cegetel since April 15, 2008. On a comparable basis, SFR's revenues decreased by 0.8%. Excluding the impact of the decrease in switched voice revenues and equipment sales, SFR revenues increased by 1.4%.

Mobile revenues amounted to EUR 2,181 million, stable compared to the same period in 2008 due to the decrease in equipment sales by EUR 22 million to EUR 77 million. Mobile service revenues increased by 1.2% to EUR 2,104 million. This increase mainly resulted from the growth of the customer base and of data revenues (+36% compared to the same period in 2008 due to unlimited SMS and MMS offers and mobile Internet development for the mass market and the Enterprise segment). However, the roaming traffic decreased.

For the first quarter of 2009, SFR added 118,000 net new mobile customers. This represents a 51% market share of net adds. In addition, SFR improved its customer mix (+3.5 percentage points year-on-year at 69.6%), adding 178,000 new postpaid customers in the period to achieve 13.76 million postpaid customers at the end of March 2009.

SFR also reported that it has sold 120,000 iPhones since the launch of the handset on its network at the beginning of April.

Maroc Telecom Group reported revenues of EUR 640 million, up 4.2% compared to the first quarter of 2008 (+2.3% at constant currency), with good performances both in Morocco and subsidiaries.

Posted to the site on 15th May 2009