SFR is failing to stop the bleeding. For nearly two years now, the Patrick Drahi telecom operator has been losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers, quarter after quarter. Nothing helps, not even the simplification of its commercial offers and the relaunching of promotions at the beginning of the year. The second French operator, behind Orange, announced on August 29, during the publication of its 2024 half-year results, that it had lost, in the second quarter, 343,000 mobile subscribers and 87,000 on fixed lines (ADSL and fiber optic).
Since the start of this new black series in the fall of 2022, after a difficult 2021, more than 1.5 million customers have cancelled their mobile subscription. As of June 30, SFR had only 19.6 million. Adding the losses in fixed telephony, of around 400,000 since the end of 2022, that’s almost two million fewer subscribers.
As a result, the telecom operator’s financial health continues to deteriorate: in the first half of 2024, its turnover fell by almost 5% to just over €5 billion, and its gross operating profit by 7% to €1.7 billion. Its net debt is increasing month by month: it is now close to €24.5 billion.
Laconic quotes
“We continue to see intense competition in the mobile market, particularly from Internet-based brands at the lower end of the market.”Altice’s CFO Malo Corbin, like Bouygues Telecom’s B&You or Orange’s Sosh, said briefly during a pre-recorded conference call lasting less than eight minutes and broadcast on August 29 for the attention of the group’s investors. The latter were not given the opportunity to ask questions, as is often the case during this type of financial transparency exercise, especially when things are going badly. Altice’s management proceeded in the same way in May when it presented its first quarter results.
These terse meetings are part of Patrick Drahi’s confrontation with the hundreds of investment funds that have lent him more than 24 billion euros over the past twenty years to enable him to build his empire in the telecommunications sector. Altice’s management warned them on March 20 that they would have to abandon part of their debts if they wanted to be repaid from 2026.
These investment funds feel betrayed. Following the arrest in August 2023 of their long-time partner, Armando Pereira, for alleged embezzlement, the businessman sought to reassure them by promising that he was ready to sell several of his companies to settle part of the debts. Altice Media (BFM-TV, RMC, etc.) and the SFR computer data centres were indeed sold, but the investors did not see a single euro: the 2 billion euros recovered from these sales were placed in separate companies, over which the creditors have no rights. rights. Since then, apart from a few exchanges between lawyers and bankers, there has been a cold war between Altice and its lenders.
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