Netia gains ground on competition

Netia said its summer promotion, which started a price war among broadband internet-service providers, helped it to attract some 42,000 new customers for its broadband services, bringing its total number of subscribers to 142,500. "We are positive that by the end of 2007 we will welcome our 200,000th customer," says Mirosław Godlewski, president of Netia's managing board.

However, the gains were also credited to the June takeover of three internet providers, bringing in some 22,000 new customers. The company spent zł.27.4 million on the purchase.

"Netia wants to have one million internet subscribers by the end of 2009, and we are going to achieve this goal also through acquisitions," announced Godlewski. He added that it was highly possible that Netia will purchase more companies before the end of the year. The company has an investment budget of zł.275 million at its disposal.

Due to the rising number of customers, Netia expects bigger revenues starting from 2008. Meanwhile, in H1 2007 the firm's revenues amounted to zł.410 million, three-percent lower than its revenues in H1 2006. The company updated its annual forecast and expects sales revenues to amount to between zł.835-850 million. Netia posted a net loss of zł.88.8 million in the first half of the year, mainly due to start-up costs of new mobile-services provider Play in which Netia holds a 23.4-percent stake.

"Play is rapidly growing however, and by the end of the year it might be serving as many as 750,000 customers," says Netia's Bertrand Le Guern.