The company, which also operates in Italy and Poland, saw its most dramatic quarterly revenue increase in France in nearly 10 years.
In results released today, Iliad reported a 56.2% rise in profits for the three months to the end of March, which came in at €93 million.
EBITDAaL, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation after leases, was recorded at €878 million euros, a jump of 12.2%.
Underlying these strong profit figures, meanwhile, were robust revenues, which rose 11.2% over the quarter to €2,431.
Looking forward, Iliad also confirmed its €10 billion revenue target for 2024 and added that it hopes to become Europe’s fifth-largest mobile operator this year.
“The first quarter of 2024 marked a very good start to the year for the Iliad Group. We delivered not only in terms of sales performance, by continuing to win market share, but also in terms of operating performance, by tightly controlling our costs,” said Thomas Reynaud, Iliad’s Chief Executive Officer
Iliad is “radically changing scale”, Reynaud also noted, with investments in new technologies including AI, cloud and data centres.
The telecoms firm which is based in France, operates in Italy and Poland – as well as on home soil.
Performance in France largely drove the recent earnings boost, as national operations recorded their strongest quarterly revenue growth in nearly 10 years, up 10%.
Revenues in Poland increased by 13.8% and Italy’s growth was at 12.8%.
Free, Iliad’s French brand, racked up 212,000 new mobile subscribers in the last quarter, while in Italy, the group gained 276,000 subscribers via its Iliad Italia brand.
In Poland, Iliad’s Play attracted 73,000 net new mobile customers.
The French telecoms firm went private in 2021 after founder Xavier Niel bought remaining shares.
It more recently secured a 19.8% stake in Swedish telecoms operator Tele2.
The company was less successful when it set its eyes on Vodafone Italia and proposed a merger with its own Italian firm.
Vodafone rejected the proposal in January and instead sold its Italian business to Swisscom for €8 billion in cash.
