Shares in Affinity Internet rose more than 22 per cent by the close of play despite announcing earlier today that operating loss increased threefold last year.

Publishing its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2000, the service provider and all round Internet business which runs more than 150 branded ISPs reported that operating losses increased from £9.1 million in 1999 to £26.8 million last year.

Turnover for the year rose almost in line with losses from £3.4 million in 1999 to £11.3 million in 2000.

The outfit said it was "well financed and well placed to concentrate on driving profitable revenues through the business".

Affinity reported that it service 1.67 million active Internet accounts across the UK and Europe.

However, it doesn't believe the slowdown in sales for the home PC market will hit future ISP registrations. Instead, it believes any slack here will be taken up by other Net access media such as kiosks, set-top boxes and PDAs.

Shares in Affinity ended the day up 57.5p at 317.5p. ®