Wind Tre, the new Italian operator emerging from the 50-50 joint venture between Veon’s Wind and Hutchison's 3 Italia, reported revenues of EUR 1.55 billion in the first three months of the year, up 2.1 percent year on year, thanks above all to a good commercial performance in its fixed and business segments and a 12.1 percent rise in mobile data revenues. The group’s EBITDA grew 9.7 percent to EUR 517 million, boosted by cost efficiencies resulting from the merger, with the margin increasing 2.3 percentage points year on year to 33.3 percent. Wind Tre Ceo Maximo Ibarra described the results as solid, adding that integration process between the two companies was proceeding rapidly and considerable synergies had already been achieved. He said all Wind Tre customers can now ‘roam like home’ in the European Union without paying surcharges.
However, the group’s total mobile customer base declined to 30.9 million at the end of March, compared to 31.3 million in the previous quarter. The figure represents around 37 percent of the Italian market, meaning the group remains the country’s biggest mobile operator in terms of mobile SIMs. Mobile broadband customers rose 5.0 percent year on year to 19.2 million, with overall mobile ARPU remaining stable at EUR 11.1. Wind Tre added that the Veon app had already been downloaded 1.5 million times at the end of March. The app offers messaging, VoIP and zero-rated streaming offers and is currently the subject of a probe from regulator Agcom on net neutrality grounds.
The performance of Wind Tre’s fixed line segment was also positive, with revenues up 2.3 percent, driven by an 8.6 percent rise in broadband revenues. Broadband customers were up 2.4 percent to EUR 2.4 million while broadband ARPU climbed 6.0 percent. Total fixed telephony customers came to 2.7 million, with direct access customers increasing by 1.8 percent and fixed telephony ARPU growing by 2.9 percent year on year to EUR 28.1.
