French operator Iliad saw a 26 per cent fall in net profit to EUR186.5 million in 2012 because of the cost of building its mobile network.

Iliad’s Free Mobile service has grown rapidly to take an eight per cent market share since its launch in January 2012 with its low-cost model. Free had 5.2 million subscribers at end-December 2012.

The company does not break out net profit for its mobile unit but did reveal it made an Ebitda loss of EUR46 million in 2012.  In contrast, Iliad’s fixed business had a positive Ebitda of EUR967.5 million, a 16 per cent growth. Overall, Ebitda grew by 10.6 per cent to EUR921 million.

However, net profits still exceeded analyst expectations despite their decline.
Iliad’s revenues grew by 48.6 per cent to EUR3.15 billion. Of this figure, mobile revenues contributed EUR844 million.

France’s competition authority last week said Iliad should end its roaming deal with rival Orange by 2018 at the latest. The authority also called for greater scrutiny of Iliad’s claims to be building its own network in response to concern expressed by rivals SFR and Bouygues.