United Internet, a provider of broadband and telephony services in Germany under the brand 1&1, has reported consolidated sales of EUR3.065 billion (USD3.4 billion) for the twelve months ended December 2014, an increase of 15.4% from EUR2.656 billion the previous year. EBITDA totalled EUR406.9 million in full-year 2014, up 35.5% year-on-year, while EBIT climbed 37.9% from EUR312.2 million in 2013 to EUR430.6 million the following year. The growth was partly driven by the full consolidation of Versatel as of 1 October 2014, with the fixed line operator contributing revenue of EUR130.6 million and EBITDA of EUR33.3 million; excluding Versatel, United Internet’s 2014 sales and EBITDA rose by 10.5% and 27.4% year-on-year. The acquisition has given United Internet access to Germany’s second largest fibre-optic cable network. In 2015 the company expects consolidated sales to rise by approximately 20%, while 40% growth in EBITDA is forecast.
The ‘Access’ segment saw sales increase 19.4% from EUR1.788 billion in 2013 to EUR2.135 billion the following year, with the number of fee-based customer contracts rising from 5.54 million to 6.79 million over the same period, including 420,000 customers from Versatel. DSL customers on ‘complete’ (ULL) packages totalled 3.89 million (up from 3.18 million a year earlier), 2.60 million were mobile internet users (1.98 million) and the remaining 300,000 were T-DSL/R-DSL subscribers (down from 380,000).