Ono grows in revenue and EBITDA in the first nine months of the year

La compañía registra de enero a septiembre un beneficio neto de 45 millones de euros, un 4,4% más que en los nueve primeros meses del año anterior. En unas condiciones duras de mercado, la compañía alcanza la cifra de los dos millones de clientes con más de 4.403.000 servicios contratados a cierre de septiembre.

Ono today announced its operating and financial results for the first nine months of 2011. The company closed the period from January to September with a net profit of 45 million euros, 4.4% more than in the same period of 2010, while EBITDA - operating profit - grew by 3.6%, to 557 million euros. The EBITDA margin increased from 48.7% to 50.4% until September 2011 and the company maintained its gross margin at 79.2%, from January to September 2011, 0.3 percentage points above the same period in 2010.

The operator's total income in the quarter ended September 30, 2011 grew by 2.5%, to 371 million euros, despite the low levels of demand that the market is experiencing, compared to the 362 million euros obtained in the same quarter of 2010. In the accumulated annual figure, income remained stable with 1,104 million euros, 0.1% more compared to the same period of the previous year.

The business continues to demonstrate a positive trend with respect to increasing residential revenues, which represent 79% of total revenues.

In the quarterly period they grew by 2.1% compared to the same quarter of 2010, up to 292 million euros and in the cumulative period from January to September 2011 they reached a total of 872 million in the year, which represents a year-on-year increase of 0.4%.

The strategy of attracting a greater number of customers who increasingly demand higher quality products, linked to packages with a greater number of services, has favored this positive trend. In this way, 24% of its customer base already has a package that includes ultra-fast speeds of 30, 50 and 100 megabytes, while 88% of television customers subscribe to higher quality packages such as Extra or Total.

This growth in income has made it possible to offset the decrease in variable consumption derived from the difficult market conditions that affect a lower number of minutes of fixed-mobile and international fixed calls, and a lower contracting of events in pay-per-view (PPV) and video on demand (VoD).

ARPU grew by 1.7% to 51.7 euros compared to 50.8 euros at the end of September 30, 2010. Quarterly, the average revenue per residential customer increased by 0.3%. In addition, 40% of the customer base has already contracted triple play combos, which is the highest percentage obtained by the company to date.

En el negocio de empresas, que supone un 21% del total de los ingresos de la compañía, Ono ha logrado una cifra de 77 millones de euros en el trimestre, un incremento del 4,5% si se compara con el mismo periodo de 2010.

Esta cifra sitúa los ingresos en este segmento en 227 millones de euros en el acumulado de los nueve primeros meses del año, un 0,8% más. Ono ha experimentado una tendencia muy favorable en el negocio de las pymes, con 57 millones de euros de ingresos de enero a septiembre, un 5,5% más que en el mismo periodo de 2010.

While this segment continues on the path of growth, large accounts continue with a downward trend due to the aggressive commercial policy of the competition that forces downward prices for the provision of the service, and that causes income to fall by 10% in the period from January to September 2011 compared to 2010, to 97 million euros.

Investing effort

The company has dedicated a significant investment effort throughout the first nine months of the year, increasing its investments in fixed assets (Capex) by 23.4% compared to the previous year to 210 million. With an economic environment not conducive to investments, Ono has continued to focus on deploying the most innovative and innovative services for homes with access to its fiber network.

In this way, these investments will allow the successful development of services such as TiVo, Ono's smart television, which it has recently begun to extend in Madrid and Barcelona, ​​and which will be marketed throughout the country in the coming months.

In addition, Ono's entire fiber optic network is already prepared to provide speeds of 100 real megabytes, being the only operator in Spain with the capacity to offer them to seven million homes currently. The operator's Operating Free Cash Flow stood at 347 million euros until September.

Ono has reached two million customers and has more than 4,403,000 contracted services as of September 30, 2011. With a difficult economic environment, ONO has been able to add more than 134,000 new services in the last twelve months, of which 85,000 have been broadband. The operator has more than 1,573,000 total broadband customers at the end of September 2011.

Ono continued to increase the number of high-speed customers in Spain, being the leader in this segment, with 341,000 active customers as of September 30, 2011, which already represents close to 24% of its total Internet customer base.

Telephone customers grew in total by 2.9% in the last twelve months of the year, reaching 1,882,000. Recently, the operator has launched new value-added services for the fixed telephone service, such as fixed-mobile bonuses, which reinforce its commitment to services packaged with broadband.

In pay television, Ono closed September with 947,000 customers, which represents an annual decrease of 0.7%. Over the next few months, Ono will give new impetus to its television service thanks to the launch of its TiVo smart television.