Wanadoo creeps into the black

By Steve Malone

Posted on 5 Sep 2002 at 10:25

French company Wanadoo, Europe's second largest ISP and owner of Freeserve in the UK, reported its first profit since its IPO. The company claims strong growth in the Internet access market, where it now has eight million customers across Europe, has helped it to boost revenues by 33%.

Wanadoo reported profits of €28 million (£17.8 million) in the first six months of 2002 compared to a loss of €54 million for the same period in 2002. Although the Internet access, portals and e-Merchant business remained in loss in 2002, these fell from €147 million in 2001 to €87 million. Meanwhile the Directories business continued strong growth to revenues of €401 million.

In July, Wanadoo bought out Spanish ISP Eresmas and now claims to be market leader in three key European markets, the UK, France and Spain. The company says it expects to have over one million broadband customers by the end of the year and a total of 15 million customers across Europe by 2005.