Wanadoo looks to broadband in 2002

European ISP Wanadoo is confident that broadband will make an impact to the French-owned business in the coming year.

Commenting on the publication of Wanadoo's results, chairman and CEO Nicolas Dufourcq said the company would "promote (the) widespread take-up of broadband services" during 2002.

But will this promotional activity extend to Freeserve, the UK's biggest ISP, and a Wanadoo-owned company? A Freeserve spokeswoman told us: "Freeserve has always said that it will get behind broadband with a full marketing campaign when a wholesale price is low enough to support it." Reading between the lines, this bland statement tells us that Freeserve thinks the price is still too high.

Wanadoo reported revenues of E466 million for Q4 up a third on the same period last year. Revenues for the full year topped E1.56 billion up 41 per cent over 2000.

The ISP say that part of this growth in revenues is down to a rise in the number of broadband users.

At the end of December 2001 it had more than 545,000 hi-speed Net users in Europe – nine per cent of its customer base - compared to just 143,000 customers at the end of 2000. ®