United Internet, a provider of broadband and telephony services in Germany under the brand 1&1, has reported consolidated sales of EUR1.434 billion (USD1.92 billion) for the first half of 2014, an increase of 11.7% from EUR1.283 billion the previous year. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) totalled EUR237.6 million, up 35.7% year-on-year, while EBIT jumped 49.5% from EUR129.4 million in the first six months of 2013 to EUR193.5 million the following year.
The ‘Access’ segment saw sales increase 12.7% year-on-year to EUR972.5 million for H1 2014, with growth driven by a rise in the number of fee-based customer contracts from 5.17 million at mid-2013 to 5.91 million twelve months later. Of the total subscriber base, 3.34 million were DSL customers on ‘complete’ (ULL) packages (up from 2.99 million a year earlier), 2.23 million were mobile internet users (1.74 million) and the remaining 340,000 were T-DSL/R-DSL subscribers (down from 440,000). The access segment reported a 17.6% year-on-year rise in EBITDA to EUR128.0 million for the first half of 2014, while EBIT jumped 20.4% from EUR94.5 million to EUR113.8 million over the same period. United Internet now expects the number of fee-based customer contracts to grow by around 900,000 in 2014, compared to the previous guidance of 800,000.