Sales up 15% to EUR 1,907.1 million - EBITDA of EUR 357.7 million reaches record prior-year figure - 610,000 new customer contracts take total to 9.76 million

Montabaur, March 24, 2011. The Management Board of United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031) today announced the consolidated results according to IFRS for the fiscal year 2010.

Group development In its fiscal year 2010, consolidated sales of United Internet AG were up 15.0% from EUR 1,658.9 million in the previous year to EUR 1,907.1 million. Despite additional expenditure for a DSL quality drive and high start-up costs for new business fields totaling EUR 71.9 million, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) remained virtually unchanged at EUR 357.7 million (comparable prior-year figure: EUR 356.1 million - without special items of EUR 60.6 million from the sale of shares). In contrast to the aforementioned expenses for quality and new business fields, there were reimbursements for previous periods totaling EUR 19.3 million concerning pre-service invoices which had been queried by United Internet. Due in particular to scheduled depreciation of EUR 21.6 million on freenet's DSL customer base acquired in late 2009, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell as expected by 9.5% to EUR 271.5 million (prior year: EUR 300.0 million).

* EBITDA and EBIT 2009 without positive special items of EUR 60.6 million from sale of shares.

Consolidated net income from continued operations decreased from EUR 271.2 million in the previous year to EUR 127.7 million. Consolidated net income of the previous year included net positive extraordinary income of EUR 75.6 million (sale of freenet and Drillisch shares, write-ups on the MSP holding and write-downs in particular on Versatel shares) as well as non-recurring, net positive tax adjustments of EUR 26.6 million. In contrast, consolidated net income of fiscal year 2010 was burdened by impairment charges (especially for the shares in freenet still held) of EUR 13.8 million and by increased losses of associated companies (especially Versatel) of EUR 31.8 million. As a consequence, earnings per share from continued operations fell from EUR 1.17 in the previous year to EUR 0.57.

Dividend
At the Annual Shareholders' Meeting on May 26, 2011, the Management Board and Supervisory Board will propose a dividend of EUR 0.20 per share.

Development of business in the "Access" segment Sales in the "Access" segment grew by 19.8% to EUR 1,230.1 million in fiscal year 2010. United Internet invested an additional EUR 50.2 million in this segment in 2010 for the establishment and development of new business fields and a DSL quality drive. In contrast to this, reimbursements for previous periods totaling EUR 19.3 million from pre-service invoices which had been queried were used to partially refinance these expenses. At EUR 122.6 million, EBITDA was only slightly below the prior-year figure. Due to scheduled depreciation of EUR 21.6 million on the acquired DSL customer base of freenet, EBIT fell as expected by 22.2% to EUR 92.0 million.

The number of fee-based contracts in the Access segment grew by 130,000 contracts in total, from 3.50 million as of December 31, 2009 to 3.63 million as of December 31, 2010.

Development of business in the "Applications" segment Sales growth in the Applications segment was slowed by the contract conversion of a major customer of Sedo's subsidiary affilinet. As a result, the listed subsidiary Sedo Holding AG posted a fall in sales of 14.2% for 2010 - whereas the rest of the segment enjoyed growth of 12.5%. Against this backdrop, total segment sales grew by just 7.1% to EUR 676.5 million. In 2010, United Internet invested an additional EUR 21.7 million in the development of new applications, the marketing of a new Do-it-Yourself Homepage and further internationalization (Poland). Despite these high expenses, segment EBITDA and EBIT were slightly up on the previous year at EUR 232.7 million and EUR 177.3 million, respectively.

The number of fee-based contracts grew by 480,000 to 6.13 million. Business Applications contributed 290,000 new contracts (total: 4.30 million) and Consumer Applications added 190,000 new contracts (total: 1.83 million).

Outlook
As already announced in November 2010, United Internet will continue to pursue its policy of sustainable growth in 2011 and once again invest heavily in new business fields. In addition to a further increase in customer acquisition efforts, the focus in 2011 will be placed on developing new applications, tapping new foreign markets for Business Applications and - for Consumer Applications - expanding the acquired Mail.com service and launching De-Mail. Despite the high start-up costs associated with these projects, EBITDA in 2011 is expected to reach a similar level to that of 2010 (EUR 357.7 million). Sales growth in 2011 is expected to reach approx. 5% in the Access segment and approx. 10% in the Applications segment.

back to overview