Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
Alternative network ISP CommunityFibre (CF), which has deployed their 5Gbps speed full fibre (FTTP) broadband network to cover 1.35 million UK premises (mostly in Greater London), has reportedly “posted its maiden profit” after recording earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of £8m in 2024. Customers also grew to 336,000.
The provider, which is currently being backed by funding of around £1.1bn, has had a rough couple of years due to the rising cost of build, strong market competition and high interest rates (a common challenge in the current market). This all caused a previous slowdown in network build and related redundancies during 2023 (here and here), which resulted in CF pivoting their strategy to focus more on growing customer uptake.
The current situation was well reflected in the company’s most recent annual accounts to the end of 2023, which were published in October 2024 (summary). At the time CommunityFibre separately noted that it had been EBITDA positive since April 2024, although the specifics of this now appear to have been confirmed by a new FT (paywall) report, which put the figure at £8m for 2024 (we’ll have to wait until later in 2025 for the full results).
The ability to achieve a positive EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) can indicate that a company’s core operations are becoming profitable (banks use this to help assess whether a company is able to pay off its debts). But the catch is that it doesn’t fully consider non-core financial expenses, which can make a great difference to the financial health of a business.
As the newspaper noted, CommunityFibre is also expected to report a pre-tax loss of £118.5mn last year off the back of substantial investments in its network. By comparison, the operator’s most recent accounts reported total losses before tax of £134.6m for 2023 (2022: £50.4m).
The CEO of CommunityFibre, Graeme Oxby, said their latest preview of results for 2024 proved “broadband competition could be financially sustainable in the long run“. The provider is also said to have reported an 82% increase in annual revenue to £76m in 2024 (up from £41.7m in 2023 and £20m in 2022) and its customer base grew to 336,000 (up from 222,000 in 2023 and 310,000 on 24th Oct 2024).