9:00AM New York - Neuf Cegetel reported profit in the year ended December 31st climbed 23% from 213 million euro a year ago to 262 million euros driven by customer growth and cost control measures.

Annual Earnings Review

Neuf Cegetel reported revenues in the year ended December 31st jumped 16% to 3.34 billion euro from 2.89 billion euro a year ago on a 65% increase in revenues for the Mass Market segment and a 7% rise in revenue for the Enterprises Division.

For the year, net income gained 23% from 213 million euro a year earlier to 262 million euros.

Earnings before taxes, income, taxes and amortization gained 32% to 720 million euro from 544 million euro a year earlier.

The company also proposed a full-year dividend of 0.60 euro per share, 50% up from 2006.

Mass Market Division

In 2007, more than 1 million new broadband subscribers joined Neuf Cegetel as 600,000 were added as a direct result of the acquisition of Club Internet.
The group also acquired 583, 000 new customers for the Neuf brand in 2007.

Market share as a result rose from 17% by the end of 2006 to 21%, while the broadband market fell 12% year-on-year.

Customer migrations in 2007 topped 1 million, with 70% migrating from AOL and Cegetel brand to the Neuf brand. However, 30% migrated to the group’s flagship Neuf Box service.

According to the company, migrations and new services launched resulted in a growth of nearly 10% in broadband ARPU between 2006 and 2007 to over 36 euro excluding taxes per month in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Enterprises Division

Sites connected in the Enterprises division rose by 34,000 year-on-year to 173,000 in 2007, while revenues grew 7% during the year.

In 2008, the group plans to improve revenue growth between 5-10% on strong focus on the development of voice-over-IP services, enhancement of VPN IP services and the development of its convergence services.

Convergence of Networks

In 2007, Neuf Cegetel began rolling out an FTTx network for its Mass Market customers, and by the end of the period the company had 130,000 homes connected.

Cegetel plans to have a million homes connected by the end of 2009.

In addition, the company continued with the roll-out of its WiFi access network and expansion of its range of TWINTM GSM-WiFi handsets.

The company is planning to add the first GSM-WiFi hybrid handset with a digital television receiver, allowing users to access a portal of 30 television channels with optimum reception both indoors via WiFi and outdoors via digital terrestrial television.