France’s smallest operator, Iliad, served up a better than expected performance in its Q3 results, as it battled rivals in the country’s ultra competitive mobile market.

The operator made 480,000 net additions to its customer base in the three months to end of September. In total, it now has 9.6 million mobile subscribers, representing what it claims is a 14 per cent market share.

Given the rapid growth in its business, Iliad unsurprisingly announced rocketing quarterly revenue growth for its mobile unit of 30 per cent to €416 million. It did not share a profit or loss figure.

The company patted itself on the back for its performance, hailing itself as “France’s leading recruiter of mobile subscribers”.

For the moment at least, France is the centre of Iliad’s attention, since it ended its pursuit of T-Mobile US.

However, founder Xavier Niel recently appeared to shoot down the possibility of a merger with domestic rival Bouygues Telecom.

It credited a number of initiatives for the strength of its quarterly performance, including its Free Mobile Plan for roaming and an innovative approach to sales, including hundreds of SIM card dispensers. These dispensers enable users to become Iliad subscribers in a matter of minutes.

The company added more mobile subscribers in the quarter than analysts expected, said Reuters.

In addition, it added 70,000 net new fixed broadband subscribers in the quarter, putting it in second place for growth during the first nine months of the year. Quadplay is central to Iliad’s strategy.

Total group revenue in Q3 was €1.05 billion, a 12 per cent increase over the same period in 2013.