- Half of Wanadoo's 6.8 million customers are now outside of France, confirming its strong European foundations.
- With more than 830,000 broadband subscribers, Wanadoo figures among the leaders in Europe's broadband Internet market.
Wanadoo had consolidated revenues of 918 million euros for the six months ended June 30, 2002, up 33 percent over the first half of 2001. Revenues from the second quarter of 2002 advanced 35 percent over the year-earlier period to 507 million euros.
On a proforma basis, using a comparable scope of consolidation, Wanadoo's revenue growth was 27 percent (not including Freeserve and Indice Multimedia, consolidated as of March 1, 2001 and April 1, 2001, respectively, and not including the Business Services segment and the Brazilian firm Telelistas, which were deconsolidated as of January 1, 2002). Proforma revenues for the second quarter of 2002 were up 32 percent.
On a proforma basis, using a comparable scope of consolidation, revenues from the Access, Portals and e-Merchant segment rose 52 percent between the first-half 2001 period and the first half of 2002. This increase reflects the robust 69-percent increase in revenues from Internet Access, led by a tripling of the broadband subscriber base in Europe. In directories, using a comparable scope of consolidation, Wanadoo posted growth of 7 percent for the first six months of 2002. This performance was led by Internet directories, which recorded growth of 45 percent for the period. Online activities (access, online advertising, e-merchant, Internet and Minitel directories and website creation) accounted for 65 percent of Wanadoo's consolidated revenues for the six months ended June 30, 2002, up from 54 percent for the year earlier period.
Commenting on these results, Nicolas Dufourcq, Chairman and CEO of Wanadoo, said: "All our businesses turned in a solid performance for the first half of 2002. These results clearly demonstrate the Internet is a daily part of the lives of millions of people across Europe. In access and directories in particular, half of our customers now live outside France.
Internet Access, Portals, e-Merchant sites: revenues up 69 percent for first-half 2002
The segment comprising Internet Access, Portals and e-Merchant sites had revenues of 516 million euros for the first half of 2002, an increase of 69 percent over first-half 2001. For the second quarter of 2002, revenues for this segment totaled 267 million euros, an increase of 55 percent over the 2001 period.
On a proforma basis, using a comparable scope of consolidation (i.e. excluding Freeserve, which was consolidated as of March 1, 2001), revenues increased 52 percent over first-half 2001, with 32 percent of revenues during the six-month period coming from operations outside of France.
Growth in revenues from the Internet Access, Portals and e-Merchant businesses derived from the following factors:
- A strong rise in the number of subscribers to Wanadoo's broadband services in Europe, representing 833,000 customers at the end of June 2002, compared with 270,000 customers at the end of June 2001. For the first six months of 2002, 38 percent of the net increase in Wanadoo's subscriber base came from broadband customers in Europe. Broadband subscribers represented 12 percent of Wanadoo's total active customer base in Europe at the end of June 2002, up from 5 percent at the end of June 2001. At June 30, 2002 Wanadoo had 631,000 broadband subscribers in France, of which 580,000 for its ADSL service. Outside of France, Wanadoo had 202,000 broadband subscribers of which 88,000 used its ADSL service at the end of June 2002.
- Continued growth in Freeserve's subscriber base in the United Kingdom. Freeserve had 2.49 million active subscribers at end June 2002, compared with 2.03 million at end June 2001. At June 30, 2002, Freeserve had 793,000 subscribers to pay services via low-speed dial-up connections, up from 532,000 at end June 2001. This represents a 49-percent increase in the number of high value-added customers in one year.
- Ongoing growth in the number of active subscribers to Wanadoo services in France and the rest of continental Europe. In France, Wanadoo had 3.42 million active subscribers at June 30, 2002, up from 2.33 million at end June 2001 (this represents a 68-percent increase). For the rest of continental Europe, the active subscriber base rose from 822,000 at the end of December 2001 to 921,000 at June 30, 2002. Wanadoo added subscribers in all its markets. Spain had 488,000 active subscribers at end June 2002, compared with 413,000 at end December 2001. The Netherlands and Belgium had 424,000 subscribers at the end of the period (not including 113,000 active customers on MyWeb), compared with 399,000 at end June 2001.
- Growing e-Merchant business. Alapage.com, which sells books, CDs, films and other products online, had a 32-percent increase in revenues, mostly reflecting a rise in the total number of orders, as well as the average purchase amount.
Wanadoo continued to grow the audience on its portals and sites, reaching 1.46 billion pages viewed in June 2002, compared with 1.09 billion in June 2001. For the first six months of 2002, Wanadoo's Portal businesses in Europe recorded revenues of 40 million euros. This figure includes 23 million euros from online advertising - stable in comparison with the first half of 2001 - and 17 million euros from content production (down 34 percent versus first-half 2001). The decrease in revenues from content production is essentially due to the delayed broadcasting by television channels of certain audiovisual programs produced by FIT Production.
Directories and Business Services: revenues up 5 percent for first-half 2002
The Directories and Business Services segment had consolidated revenues of 401 million euros for the first six months of 2002, up 5 percent over first-half 2001. The rise in Revenues is due to the change in the publishing date of certain hardcopy directories between the first and the second quarter 2002. Revenues from the Directories and Business Services were 240 million euros for the second quarter, up 19 percent over the year-earlier period.
On a proforma basis using a comparable scope of consolidation (not including Freeserve and Indice Multimedia portals (consolidated as of April 1, 2001), or business services and Telelistas, which were deconsolidated as of January 1, 2002), revenue growth for the Directories segment was 7 percent for first-half 2002 over first-half 2001.
The key indicators for the Directories segment continued to register growth:
- Revenues from online directories in France rose 12 percent (advertising and website creation, integrating Minitel and Internet activities) between June 30, 2001 and June 30, 2002, reaching 99 million euros. Revenues from pagesjaunes.fr jumped 45 percent while revenues from website creation advanced 28 percent. The number of Internet advertisers on pagesjaunes.fr reached 223,000 at June 30, 2002, compared with 174,000 at end June 2001.
- The qdq.com online directory in Spain gained momentum. The site, the equivalent of pagesjaunes.fr, now counts 500,000 unique visitors and 5 million page views per month. More than 3,000 advertisers have already been won over by qdq.com, whose service proposing photos of city street addresses will be enriched in the coming months.
For the complete press release:www.francetelecom.com
About Wanadoo
Wanadoo is the Internet unit of France Telecom. In the six years since its founding, Wanadoo has become one of Europe's top Internet companies, with operations in six countries. At the end of June 2002 Wanadoo had more than 6.8 million active subscribers including more than 800,000 broadband customers. It is the largest ISP in France (3.4 million active customers) and in the U.K. (2.5 million active customers). Wanadoo is also No. 1 in online directories in France, with more than 220,000 advertisers on its pagesjaunes.fr directory portal, and is No. 2 in Spain with directory publisher Indice Multimedia. Wanadoo brings its customers the best of the Internet, with practical communications resources and useful services available on a variety of general interest and themed portals. The audience on Wanadoo sites is continually growing: currently, some two-thirds of French Internet users access a Wanadoo site daily.
'Positive Generation', Wanadoo's new baseline, symbolizes a new Internet attitude that is resolutely open to the world, optimistic and enterprising. The baseline will progressively be extended to all Wanadoo operations in Europe.
Press Contacts:
Nilou du Castel / Elisabeth Bozzi
Tel : 33 1 44 44 93 93
nilou.ducastel@francetelecom.com elisabeth.bozzi@francetelecom.com
Investor Relations :
Vincent Gouley
Tel : 33 1 58 88 75 68
vincent.gouley@wanadoo.com