SFR continues to lose subs as revenues and earnings decline

Source: SFR

Altice France operator SFR has continued to lose subscribers in the third quarter, leading it to post declining revenues and earnings.

Telecom revenue declined by 2.9% year over year and total revenue declined by 2.8% year over year in Q3 2023. Total EBITDA declined by 5.4% year over year in Q3 2023.

Total revenue for the quarter was €2.72 billion, with only 0.8% growth in media revenue to €71 million very marginally offsetting the drop in telecom revenue. EBITDA amounted to €997 million.

SFR had just over 35 million homes passed by its fibre network as of the end of September, up by 1.2 million quarter on quarter, with total fibre customers numbering 4.757 million, up around 90,000, and total fixed customers numbering 6.464 million, down by 40,000.

Total mobile customers numbered 20.685 million. However, this included for the first time customers with 4G keys to connect laptops alongside mobile phone customers, masking a decline in the latter of around 118,000.

The company’s net debt at the end of September was just over €24 billion, up around half a billion on the figure at the start of the year. The company has made a start to a programme of planned divestitures to reduce the debt burden by striking a deal to sell its French data centre business to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners.