Bouygues aims to beat Altice to become #2 in France

Bouygues aims to expand its telecoms business to become France’s second-largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers by 2026.
Bouygues, which ranks behind market leader Orange and Altice Europe’s SFR in the country’s mobile market, sealed the purchase of Euro-Information Telecom (EIT) last year and has also been picking up customers.

The company derives the bulk of its sales from construction, but telecoms is its fastest-growing division. It had 12.3 million mobile subscribers at the end of September, compared with Altice’s 14.6 million and Orange’s 22.5 million.

Bouygues said it aimed to exceed 7 billion euros ($8.5 billion) in telecoms revenue by 2026, up from 6 billion euros in 2019. It is also targeting core profit, after leases, of 2.5 billion euros, versus 1.4 billion in 2019.

It said the unit’s core profit margin, which is expected to be about 31 percent in 2020, would likely remain around that level until 2023 because of the high investments needed to expand and upgrade its networks and the integration of EIT.

The company said capital expenditure for the telecoms business, a key metric tracked by investors and analysts in the sector, would be around 1.5 billion euros between 2021 and 2025 and of about 1.4 billion in 2026.