Le Freeswerve has halved the amount of cash it lost in the last quarter, it reported today.

It made an operating loss of £6 million (before share-based compensation, amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items) in the Q2 to 11 November, compared to £14.6 million in the previous quarter.

L'ISP also increased its e-commerce and advertising revenues by more than 50 per cent and managed to recruit some 40,000 people to its service a week.

No doubt this will curry favour with Le Freeswerve's new masters, French outfit Wanadoo.

It also claims it is the market leader in unmetered access with 338,000 active registered accounts on Freeswerve's two flat-rate access offers.

Strangely, BTinternet said last week it was the market leader with 500,000 registered unmetered users. How odd. It seems these people can run a Net business and lose millions of pounds each month - but can't add up.

In a statement, Monsieur John Pluthero, CEO, de Le Freeswerve plc, said: "These results demonstrate our continued strong progress.

"During the quarter we increased our average weekly advertising and e-commerce revenues by more than 50% over the first quarter and our customers increased their average daily use of the Internet by a further 22% on the previous quarter.

"The combination of Freeserve with Wanadoo will create new opportunities and further accelerate the development of our business," he said. ®

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