United Internet gets off to good start in FY 2021
- Customer contracts: + 280,000 to 25.93 million contracts
- Sales: + 4.7% year on year to EUR 1.392 billion
- EBITDA: EUR 346.5 million, thereof operating EUR 312.1 million (+ 3.8%)
- EBIT: EUR 230.6 million, thereof operating EUR 196.2 million (+ 6.5%)
- EPS: EUR 0.68, thereof operating EUR 0.58 (+ 23.4%)
- 2021 guidance confirmed
Montabaur, May 11, 2021. United Internet got off to a good start in its fiscal year 2021. In the first quarter of 2021, the company made further investments in new customer contracts and the expansion of its existing customer relationships, and thus in sustainable growth. All in all, the number of fee-based customer contracts was raised by a further 280,000 contracts to a current 25.93 million. Of this total, 140,000 contracts were added in the Consumer Access segment and 110,000 contracts in the Business Applications segment. A further 30,000 contracts and 150,000 ad-financed free accounts were added in the Consumer Applications segment.
Consolidated sales grew by 4.7% to EUR 1,392.2 million in the first quarter of 2021 (EUR 1,329.4 million in the previous year).
In the first quarter of 2021, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounted to EUR 346.5 million and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to EUR 230.6 million. These figures include an (out-of-period) positive effect of EUR 34.4 million from the fiscal year 2020. On February 15, 2021, 1&1 Drillisch accepted Telefónica Germany’s offer – improved following review by the EU Commission – for national roaming and thus also retroactively as of July 1, 2020 for the related MBA MVNO advance services. The prices offered include annually decreasing data prices again, similar to the pricing mechanisms of the first five years of the MBA MVNO agreement. The offer accepted by 1&1 Drillisch is currently being transposed into a national roaming agreement.
Adjusted for this (out-of-period) positive effect on earnings from the new advance service prices, EBITDA, EBIT and EPS developed as follows: operating EBITDA improved by 3.8% from EUR 300.8 million in the same period last year to EUR 312.1 million, and operating EBIT by 6.5% from EUR 184.2 million to EUR 196.2 million. These earnings figures include initial costs for the construction of the Company’s own 5G network of EUR -7.2 million (prior year: EUR -2.8 million) as well as the announced investments of IONOS – above all for a product and sales drive in its cloud business and for further international expansion – amounting to EUR -10.1 million.
Earnings per share (EPS) amounted to EUR 0.68. Without consideration of the (out-of-period) positive effect on earnings from the new advance service prices (EPS effect: EUR +0.10) and the Tele Columbus impairment charge in the previous year (EPS effect: EUR -0.08), operating EPS improved by 23.4% from EUR 0.47 in the same period last year to EUR 0.58, while operating EPS before PPA rose by 15.3% from EUR 0.59 to EUR 0.68.
Outlook 2021
On completion of the first quarter of 2021, United Internet AG can confirm its full-year guidance for 2021 and continues to expect sales growth to approx. EUR 5.5 billion and an increase in EBITDA to approx. EUR 1.22 billion (without consideration of the aforementioned out-of-period effect on earnings of EUR 34.4 million).