Montabaur, November 14, 2008. United Internet can look back on a successful first nine months to 2008 with regard to its operations. Whereas the dominant Product segment with the brands 1&1, GMX, WEB.DE, Fasthosts and InterNetX posted strong growth, sales and earnings in the Online Marketing segment, with the brands AdLINK Media, affilinet and Sedo, were not satisfactory.

*EBITDA and EBT without positive special item in Q2/07

Consolidated sales of United Internet AG grew by 13.9% in the first nine months of 2008, from EUR 1,073.1 million (comparable prior-year figure) to EUR 1,221.8 million. Adjusted for currency fluctuations, sales growth amounted to 15.7%. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) grew by 14.1%, from EUR 218.7 million (comparable prior-year figure) to EUR 249.5 million.

Due to the strategic investments in MSP Holding (freenet), Versatel and Drillisch, consolidated net income and earnings per share (EPS) were burdened by higher interest payments of around EUR 16 million and a negative net contribution to earnings from associated companies of EUR 8.3 million. Despite these negative effects, net income from ordinary activities improved by 22.1%, from EUR 108.2 million (comparable prior-year figure) to EUR 132.1 million. Earnings per share (EPS) from ordinary activities rose by 26.7%, from EUR 0.45 (comparable prior-year figure) to EUR 0.57.

The share prices of the strategic investments in freenet (via MSP Holding) and Drillisch have fallen strongly over the past few months. On the basis of stock market prices as of September 30, 2008, the Management Board and Supervisory Board have decided to write down the book values of these companies by a total of EUR 145.6 million. These non-recurring and non-cash effects resulted in net income of EUR -13.5 million and an EPS of EUR -0.06.

*Results without positive special item in Q2/07

"Against the backdrop of a weak online advertising market, we are generally satisfied with the development of our operating business. We are broadly positioned with our business model," says Ralph Dommermuth, CEO of United Internet AG. "Whereas our important Product segment proved crisis-proof, thanks to our stable subscription business, fears of recession led to budget cuts among advertisers and thus raised the pressure on margins. This had a clearly visible impact on sales and earnings in our Online Marketing segment. At the same time, marketing revenues in our portal business grew more moderately than planned."

There continues to be dynamic growth in paid subscriptions in the Product segment. As September 30, 2008, United Internet had a total of 7.83 million customer contracts. The Group thus enjoyed strong growth in all product lines over the past nine months with a net addition of 680,000 new contracts.

"One of the key growth drivers is our foreign webhosting business. In this area alone, the number of fee-based customer contracts grew by 330,000 in the first nine months to 1.88 million. Including Germany, we held around 3.57 million webhosting contracts as of September 30, 2008 (31.12.2007: 3.21 million). In the field of Information Management we added 140,000 new contracts during the period under review to reach 1.35 million contracts and added around 190,000 new DSL contracts to reach 2.78 million customer contracts," continues Dommermuth. Around 90,000 further DSL contracts were still being processed at the end of the quarter.

Outlook
"In the 4th quarter we expect to add approx. 180,000 new customer contracts, of which approx. 60,000 in our DSL business. Falling demand in the Online Marketing segment (AdLINK), which began in the reporting quarter, is expected to continue. At the same time, marketing revenue from portals is growing at a more moderate pace than planned ? approx. 20% sales growth is now expected in this field for 2008. As a result of these developments, we now forecast growth of approx. 10% for our operating business in 2008 as a whole: sales are expected to grow to approx. EUR 1,660 million (prior year: EUR 1,487.4 million) and EBITDA to approx. EUR 330 million (comparable prior-year figure: EUR 297.4 million)," states Ralph Dommermuth with regard to future expectations.

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