Bracing competition and consolidation setbacks did not stop France’s Bouygues Telecom from talking up “improved” Q2 results, and making an upward revision to its full-year guidance.

Bouygues Telecom’s revenue remained stable in the second quarter at €1.1 billion, although it was down by one per cent to €2.2 billion in the first half of 2015. But the operator made a loss of €66 million in the first half of 2015, against a £5 million net profit in 2014 (a restated figure).

However parent Bouygues saw sufficient good news to revise upwards the operator’s full-year guidance: Ebitda is expected to rise to around €750 million in 2015, compared with €694 million in 2014 and the stable target announced on 13 May 2015. The target of €300 million of savings in 2016 versus end-2013 will be “significantly outstripped”.

The company also said its ongoing transformation strategy and network sharing with Numericable-SFR is likely to create non-current charges of around €200 million, which will impact operating profit.

The basis for the full-year revision is tight controls of costs and a strong commercial performance that saw its total mobile base increase by 160,000 in the three months to the end of June. Its total base is 11.27 million. The operator has pushed hard to attract 4G customers, who now account for 42 per cent of the total base, or 4.1 million. 4G penetration was only 19 per cent at end-June 2014.

Rivals
The arrival of Free Mobile in France’s mobile market triggered harsh competition between the newcomer and the country’s three operators Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom.

Attempts at consolidation failed, leaving Bouygues Telecom to adopt a radical strategy last summer that involved job losses and a focus on 4G. This approach now seems to be making some progress.

At the group level, parent Bouygues saw a one per cent fall in first-half revenue to €15.1 billion. The loss attributable to the group (excluding extraordinary items) was €4 million, an improvement from €20 million in 2014 (a restated figure).