BÜDELSDORF (dpa-AFX) - Growth in the mobile communications and TV business has brought Freenet an increase in profits in 2023. The Management Board announced stable earnings for the new year. However, the operating result could both rise slightly and fall somewhat, as the company wants to invest money in revenue growth. Investors on the stock market were satisfied on Thursday.

The Freenet share rose by 1.2 percent in the morning. However, one trader noted that the outlook was disappointing. The previous evening, Freenet had announced in Büdelsdorf that it expected sales to remain stable in 2024. In the previous year, this had risen by 2.8 percent to a good 2.6 billion euros. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased by 4.5% to a good 500 million euros.

The company's management is hoping for a moderate increase in mobile customers and significant growth in waipu.tv subscribers. Freenet is benefiting from the imminent abolition of the so-called ancillary cost privilege: In the past, landlords were able to charge the cost of the cable TV connection via the ancillary rental costs. From July 2024, this will come to an end and tenants will have to find their own alternative.

Vodafone Germany had benefited the most from the previous regulation, but the British group's most important subsidiary has been losing cable customers for months. Freenet, on the other hand, attracted around 134,000 net new customers in the fourth quarter alone, and this figure is likely to rise at the beginning of the year.

Between October and December, Group sales increased by 3.1 percent year-on-year to 688.6 million euros. The increase in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was greater: At 124.2 million euros, the figure was around 6.7 percent higher than in the same period last year. Freenet thus developed roughly in line with analysts' expectations. A dividend of €1.77 per share is to be paid to shareholders for 2023, compared to €1.68 a year earlier.

In an initial reaction, industry expert Polo Tang from the major Swiss bank UBS commented that Freenet had achieved a surprisingly good increase in sales at the end of the year, primarily thanks to its TV product. In the medium term, however, it is unclear how profitable the TV business actually is.

Tang is also concerned about Freenet's competitiveness after the mobile phone companies 1&1 and Vodafone plan to enter into a partnership this year. From late summer, the United Internet subsidiary will probably no longer obtain its mobile services from Telefonica Deutschland, but from the British group./ngu/nas/mis/men