Frenchman Iliad announced on Tuesday this summer that he plans to launch his fixed-line business in Italy, where he expects to post a profit in the second half of the year, helping to push the shares of the telecommunications operator up by more than 5 %.

Iliad, which launched its low-cost mobile offer in Italy in 2018, added nearly 2 million mobile subscribers over the year, increasing its turnover there by 58% to 674 million euros (803 million dollars) while reducing its operating loss in Italy to 133 million euros. .

CEO Thomas Reynaud told reporters in a conference call that Iliad will now focus on expanding its Italian subscriber base, finalizing its network deployment and transforming a fixed-mobile operator.

Iliad has grown outside of its home market in recent years, notably in Poland where it acquired the leading mobile operator Play for 3.5 billion euros at the end of last year.

In Poland, Iliad achieved a turnover of 200 million euros over the consolidation period, with a core result of 70 million euros. The group’s objective is to increase its operating cash flow there this year.

In France, Iliad added some 63,000 net mobile subscribers, despite a drop in the fourth quarter with the disconnection of customers from a 2 euro plan adapted to the pandemic.

The group had 13.4 million mobile subscribers in its home market at the end of the year, including 8.6 million on an unlimited 4G / 5G plan that it launched in December at no additional cost to subscribers.

Local competitors Orange, Bouygues Telecom and Altice-SFR launched commercial 5G services late last year, after four tenders for segments of the country’s spectrum in October.

In total, the group recorded an increase of 18.4% in its core consolidated income to 1.96 billion euros on a turnover up 10.1% to 5.87 billion with growth in all of its activities. Its shares were up 5.6% as of 8:39 a.m. GMT.