Steady growth in the number of mobile customers helped shore
upFrance Telecom's first half sales, which dropped 0.5%
to €25.5bn for the first half of 2009 against an average 2.9% drop
in GDP in the countries in which it operates.
The customer base grew 6.6% year on year due mainly to a 9.7%
rise in mobile services to 125.5 million customers at 30 June
2009.
EBITDA margin rose in the second quarter to 35.4% from 34.7% in
the first quarter as a result of cost savings and reorganisation,
which included a slowdown in capital expenditure and
rationalisation in its 2G networks, IT and fixed legacy
services.
This helped push up net income up 2.3% to €2.58bn.
