The operator lost almost half a million subscribers in 2023

Down 300,000 mobile subscribers and 150,000 fixed subscribers in a year: Altice, SFR’s parent company, publishes its annual financial results for 2023, a more than difficult year. The outlook for 2024 is not better.

Subscribers in free fall, and debt that’s mounting: It’s a double penalty for SFR, which announced it lost nearly half a million customers last year out of a total of 20 million. During the presentation of its latest financial results, which took place on Wednesday March 20, its parent company Altice France delivered a lot of bad news.

• Its turnover decreased by 1.3% compared to 2022 (to 11.16 billion euros).
• Its operating profit (Ebitda, a financial indicator corresponding to the group’s profit before interest and tax payments) fell 4.3% to 3.923 billion euros.
• Its debt rose from 23.8 to 24.3 billion euros.
• And to top it all off, the operator lost 300,000 mobile subscribers and 150,000 landline subscribers in a year. Between the third and fourth quarters of 2023, there were 231,000 fewer mobile subscribers and 73,000 fewer fixed Internet subscribers.

The only good news: SFR recorded 400,000 more fiber customers in 2023.

Sell ​​assets to meet upcoming debt payments

For analysts, this loss of subscribers is not surprising: the group led by Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi had already explained in the columns. the echo Nor does the recovery strategy involve winning new subscribers. Last October, Mathieu Cocq, CEO of SFR, emphasized to our colleagues that there is no longer any question “ Race for volume at any cost » Or To sell our offers » – the model that was dominant until then. The idea was that ” Low recruiting clients “,” But to keep them better “

This last objective has not yet been achieved. The group, which has eliminated its promotional offers on landlines, may have lost customers who favored the most economical subscriptions, in a context where purchasing power has weakened in particular. Competition in the French market also played a role, Altice explained during the press conference.

This week, the group reiterated that its priority remains the same: to reduce the 60 billion euros of excessive debt owed to operators worldwide – including 23.8 billion euros for France.

Also Read: After Orange, SFR hikes prices of its fiber subscriptions

Bad news for Altice doesn’t come from last year. With interest rates rising, the group will no longer be able to borrow to repay its earlier loans. To reduce his debt, Patrick Drahi announced last week that he was selling BFMTV and RMC for more than 1.5 billion euros to billionaire Rodolphe Sade, who heads ship owner CMA-CMG.

There may be other transfers final — like Meo, operator in Portugal — or is consideredLike La Poste Mobile or Xpfibre, its fiber optic network, reports knowledgable Last February. In 2023, Altice announced that it would sell its data centers to American bank Morgan Stanley. The group must find liquidity to pay future installments: 1.4 billion in 2025, 1.3 billion in 2026, 5.5 billion in 2027 and 9.4 billion in 2028.

Also Read: Part of SFR may be sold soon

2024 will also be a difficult year

In such a context, 2023 was a critical year for Altice, further overshadowed by the corruption scandal that began last summer. In mid-July, we learned that Armando Pereira, Patrick Drahi’s right-hand man and number 2 in the group, was accused of money laundering, corruption and tax evasion in Portugal. The latter may have set up a vast system of fraudulent commissions, hiding around 100 million euros from the Portuguese tax authorities. An investigation was also launched by the Financial Prosecutor’s Office in France last September, which revealed Bloomberg

At the beginning of March.

And bad patches may still persist. ” We expect revenues to decline in 2024. Altice Europe director Denis Okhujsen explained during a conference call with analysts. The reasons? “A slowdown in construction activity and a still competitive residential market, especially in Mobile “

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Source:

Altice 2023 financial results published on March 20, 2024