Liberty Global claimed the size of its user base had been dramatically understated in an Iliad Group investor presentation yesterday (29 August), statistics which the latter claimed showed it had become a top-five player in Europe by subscribers.

In slides backing-up the assertion, Iliad pinned its combined fixed and mobile base at almost 50 million at the end of H1, placing it fifth behind Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone Group and Telefonica.

Iliad noted the statistics cited combined fixed and mobile subscribers, excluded M2M when the details were available and used the “latest available data reported by the different operators”. It also pointed to the fact BT Group did not supply figures and split joint venture subscriber numbers 50:50.

The presentation had Liberty Global in ninth with 29 million subscribers.

In a statement to Mobile World Live, a Liberty Global representative claimed Iliad had: “dramatically under-represented Liberty Global’s fixed and mobile connections”.

“We currently provide more than 85 million in Europe.” 

Its telecommunications operations in Europe comprise service providers in Switzerland, Belgium, Slovakia, the Republic of Ireland, and joint ventures in the UK and Netherlands.