Grain sees strong financial returns for first quarter

Grain is celebrating record achievements as its business goes from strength to strength, following the financial results for the quarter ended March 2025.

As expected, the altnet company has seen profitability continue to improve with Grain turning EBITDA positive during the quarter, and its total operating costs per customer continued to fall rapidly to around £21 by the end of the year, with total operating costs flat across the year despite significant growth in customers.

Homes ready for service grew by 24% during the financial year to cover over 250,000 premises.

Customer numbers are also up 58% at 43,000 with take-up growing steadily from 13% to 17% over the last 12 months, despite adding 50,000 new premises during the year, and it is continuing to invest in its footprint, with coverage already achieved in the north east, north west, Humber, Yorkshire and Midlands regions.

Grain is due to turn cashflow positive on its current footprint in 2026, generating a surplus of EBITDA more than covering the cost of connecting customers and servicing the interest payments on its debt.

This positive result means Grain plans to continue investing additional capital above this into expansion of its footprint, given the strong financial returns being generated.

Richard Cameron, CEO reflected: “The altnet market has experienced significant challenges recently, with many providers struggling to generate sufficient returns to service their debts and deliver a return to their shareholders, often due to high costs, low take-up and the high connection costs required to connect customers to PIA based networks.

“Thankfully, these are problems which Grain doesn’t face, putting us in a unique position having already built a sustainable business over the long term.

“Grain’s home ready for service already has a live network at the boundary of each premise and doesn’t have the large capital expenditure overhang costs to connect customers. This coupled with an efficient customer acquisition model makes Grain unique with new customers paying back in the first year of their contracts.”