Expensive expansion: Fastned increases loss to 26.6 million euros
Fastned, a fast-charging company from the Netherlands, is one of Europe’s main HPC network operators. It currently has 346 active charging locations with 2,109 charging points in Europe. The latter is an increase of 23 per cent compared to 2023. In 2024 alone, the company commissioned 50 charging hubs. According to Fastned, the number of charging sessions rose by 35 per cent to 5 million in 2024. Just over 140 GWh of renewable energy was delivered in 2024 (+41% YoY). That means users charged more energy per charging process.
The Netherlands was and is Fastned’s core market. The company operates 181 locations there, with 44 in France and 42 in Germany. Relatively little has happened here in 2024: six new locations were added in France and three in Germany. In the future, however, a great deal will happen in these two countries in particular. More on this in a moment. Fastned also has 10 locations in Switzerland, 36 in Belgium, three in Denmark, and 30 in the UK. This year, it will also install the first stations in Italy and Spain. Fastned has already set its sights on Poland and Ireland as further target markets.
139 new locations in the pipeline
As an interesting figure in the annual report, the Dutch company also states how many locations it has acquired. For 2024, Fastned has secured 139 locations, which the company has now added to its ‘pipeline’. Fastned currently has 569 locations in operation or development. The company says in its announcement: “During 2024 we achieved significant tender victories (for example, the Deutschlandnetz tender in Germany) and forged innovative new partnerships, as announced with Places for London. More locations were secured in the first quarter of 2024 alone than in the entire year of 2023.”
Germany is the market with the highest number of Fastned development locations secured in 2024 – 50 in total. The second-highest number of prospective locations that Fastned finalised last year are in France (19), followed by the UK (17), Switzerland (16) and Belgium (13).
More revenue, but higher loss
In terms of Fastned’s profitability, the charging point operator achieved a positive EBITDA for the second year in a row according to the figures now presented. In 2024, this amounted to 7.4 million euros – compared to 4.6 million euros in 2023. However, the bottom line was a loss of 26.6 million euros. That was 38 percent more loss than the 19.3 million euros in 2023.
The company puts its revenue at €86 million (+43% YoY). As a reminder, in 2022, this figure was still at €34 million. So things are steadily improving. According to Fastned, annual revenue per station rose to €270,000 (+21% YoY), while annual volume per station climbed to 440 MWh (+20% YoY).
The main cost drivers for the company are operating expenses, which increase with the size of the network, and expansion costs. The former amounted to almost €36 million in 2024 (compared to €21 million and €12 million in 2023 and 2024). Fastned estimates that the costs for the expansion of the HPC network will be 23 million euros (after 15 million and 12 million in the previous years). On the revenue side, Fastned expects, among other things, a capital inflow of 82 million euros from three bond issues in 2024, “demonstrating the continuing support of our investor community,” as Fastned writes.
The company emphasises that positive financial growth was achieved “even throughout a turbulent year for the industry.”
Michiel Langezaal, co-founder and CEO of Fastned, comments: “I am delighted with our highly encouraging results in 2024. Our roll-out continues to accelerate, and our outstanding station economics has brought record revenues and a leading position in the fast-charging market. Europe’s goal of an electric-only future by 2035 has been reaffirmed, and these results give me great confidence that we will play a key role in this transition as we continue scaling at pace.”
Given the somewhat sluggish EV uptake in some markets recently, revising the previous targets of 1,000 charging parks by 2030 is apparently out of the question for Fastned. That is precisely why EnBW significantly scaled back its plans for expanding the charging network this week. Instead of the 30,000 fast-charging points it had originally announced, the energy company now only plans to operate ‘over 20,000’ in Germany by 2030.
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