Alice purchase drives Iliad’s Q4 revenues up 43%

French internet service provider (ISP) Iliad (Free) today reported a 43% rise in revenues for the three months ended 31 December 2008, driven by the contribution of Telecom Italia’s Alice France unit which it acquired in August 2008. Iliad posted quarterly revenues of EUR473.3 million (USD610.9 million) compared with EUR331.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, eclipsing the EUR463.9 million figure forecast by a Dow Jones Newswires’ poll. Sales derived from broadband operations climbed 43.4% year-on-year to EUR464.8 million – broken down as EUR374.8 million for Free (up 14.8%), EUR85.7 million from Alice (consumer unit) and EUR5.8 million from Alice (corporate). The group’s traditional voice telephony business contributed revenues of EUR8.5 million, up 16.4% y-o-y. As at 31 December 2008, Iliad had signed up a total of 4.226 million ADSL subscribers (including 836,000 of the former Alice unit), up from 4.125 million three months earlier, and 1.3 million more than it had at the start of the year. The altnet confirmed its target of reaching five million subscribers in 2011, and also to have FTTH coverage of four million households in 2012.