United Internet Reports Preliminary 2024 H1 Results and Revises Forecast

Montabaur, August 2, 2024. United Internet AG continued its strategy of investing in new and existing customer relationships, resulting in sustainable growth in the first half of 2024. The number of fee-based customer contracts rose by 330,000 to 28.78 million. This growth was seen across the “Consumer Access,” “Business Applications,” and “Consumer Applications” segments.

Preliminary data indicates a 2.8% increase in sales, from EUR 3,014.2 million in H1 2023 to EUR 3,099.9 million in H1 2024. This modest growth is attributed to reduced hardware and Aftermarket sales, which are low-margin and minimally impact earnings.

EBITDA slightly decreased from EUR 668.7 million to EUR 662.3 million, influenced by increased expenses for expanding the 1&1 mobile network. EBIT saw a drop to EUR 347.4 million, impacted by higher depreciation and amortization costs due to investments in network infrastructure.

United Internet has adjusted its forecast for the fiscal year 2024, now expecting sales of around EUR 6.4 billion. EBITDA is projected to be approximately EUR 1.38 billion. Cash capex is anticipated to be 15–25% higher than the previous year, mainly due to building the company’s inventory of network components.

The forecast revision is mainly due to a temporary outage of the 1&1 mobile network and additional expenses for network recalculations, leading to an increase in contract terminations and a subsequent slower growth rate in contracts, sales, and EBITDA.