Posted: 15th Jan, 2005 By: MarkJ
ISP Pipex has managed to finish 2004 with an impressive broadband ADSL subscriber base of over 250,000:
PIPEX Communications plc, the telecoms network operator and provider of business and residential broadband solutions, is pleased to announce that it expects to report results for the year ended 31 December 2004 in line with market expectations.
During 2004 PIPEX acquired both Host Europe plc, the hosting services and domain registration provider, and Nildram, one of the UK's leading independent broadband internet service providers, for a total consideration of £44 million. The integration of these businesses has gone very well and is in line with management expectations.
PIPEX has maintained its "capex-light" business model with capital expenditure at the end of the financial year amounted to less than 6% of sales, the majority of which was directly related to new customer provisioning. Gross margins for the year have strengthened to 47%, as a result of a favourable shift in the mix of product revenues.
Customer numbers at the year end reached 420,000 across broadband, hosting, domain registrations, private circuits and voice (up from 150,000 in January 2004). Broadband customers, in particular, have grown by 67% over the year with average revenue per broadband customer increasing by 4% in the same period. This was due to a combination of factors including a change in mix between business and residential customers, as well as upgrades.
At the end of 2004 PIPEX launched both its first VOIP service and a bundled broadband and voice product. Initial take-up of these services has been very encouraging.Sadly we'll have to wait until April for the full 2004 report.