The telco’s waipu.tv is the fastest growing linear IPTV platform in the German market
German altnet freenet’s EBITDA has risen to just over half a billion euros for the first time in FY 2023 as the telco signalled it was seeing signs of a rational mobile market in Germany as its mobile ARPUs stabilised. Overall, the the telco’s mobile communications segment generated revenues totalling €2.3 billion, 1.4% more than in the previous year (€2.25 million). Overall, the segment contributed EBITDA of €417.4 million to Group EBITDA in the reporting period, an increase of 3.7% (YoY).
The telco continues to benefit from the ongoing trend of customers moving from prepaid to flexible postpaid contracts. At €18, postpaid ARPU proved to be stable compared to the previous year (€17.9). Monthly recurring service revenue increased by 2.5% to €1.7 billion and continues to account for most of the segment revenue. Freenet expects moderate mobile growth and stable ARPU again in 2024 suggesting competitive pricing pressures have eased in the German market – despite the arrival of 1&1 into the mix.
The operator, led by CEO Christoph Vilanek (above), kicked off its “freenet, fertig, los!” marketing campaign which focus on brand awareness through sport and other sponsorships. As a result, freenet said its brand awareness has almost doubled. The number of postpaid customers has grown moderately by 2% to 7.42 million since the end of the previous year (7.27 million). The number of users of app-based tariffs (freenet FUNK and FLEX) has increased by 7.3% compared to the end of 2022 (113,100) to 121,300.
TV proving the growth engine
The TV and Media segment recorded an increase in TV subscribers to almost 2 million. In particular, the number of subscribers to the operator’s waipu.tv grew strongly in the past financial year. waipu.tv gained around 400,000 net new subscribers (previous year: 247,000). At the end of the year, the number of subscribers rose to 1.369 million. With waipu.tv, freenet’s EXARING subsidiary has now established itself as the second-largest provider on the German IPTV market.
Revenues in the sector saw a double-digit increase to €345.4m (FY22 €313.3m), mainly driven by waipu.tv, which saw revenues up more than 30%.
As expected, the number of revenue-generating users (RGU) of freenet TV fell noticeably by 101,800 from 685,600 to 583,800 in the twelve months of the past year, mainly because of a price increase at the end of 2022. The revenues generated by freenet TV nevertheless remained stable compared to the previous year.
Overall, the strong growth of waipu.tv more than compensated for the decline in freenet TV users, with the number of subscribers to TV products totalling 1.95m at the end of the year, significantly higher than at the end of the previous year (1.66m). Freenet’s Media Broadcast unit also gained new customers in B2B services and continued to make the largest contribution to revenues and segment EBITDA.
Overall, the TV and Media segment increased its revenues by 10.2% YoY (€313.3m) to €345.4m and achieved a 4.5% increase in EBITDA to €110.2 million. The lower EBITDA growth compared to revenues was due to investments in waipu.tv’s brand awareness in the second half of the past financial year.
Swiss bank UBS left freenet’s rating at neutral despite the Q4 sales surprise in the telco’s TV entertainment sector as the bank was still cautious on the operator’s longer-term mobile prospects.