Q3 Growth at BSkyB

LONDON: For the nine months ended March 31, 2011, BSkyB’s revenues increased by 14 percent to £4.8 billion, delivering an operating profit of £790 million, 24-percent higher than the year-ago period.

The company how has more than 10.1 million customers, with 51,000 net additions in Q3. Sky notes that 26 percent of subs are triple-play customers. ARPU increased from £503 million to £544 million, and churn rose from 9.9 percent to 10.4 percent. The Sky HD base now stands at 3.7 million.

“The business has delivered another good performance in what has clearly been a tough consumer environment and we are benefiting from the transition to more broadly based growth," said Jeremy Darroch, chief executive. "Good progress on multiple fronts is translating into strong financial results with double-digit growth in revenue, profit and cash flow. At a time of significant pressure on household budgets, we have added over 800,000 subscription products as more customers choose Sky for a greater variety of services. Take-up of high definition remains very strong and we have had another excellent quarter in home communications, with 26 percent of customers saving money by taking all three of TV, broadband and home phone."

He added, "The strength of our financial performance has been equally broadly based, with good revenue growth across retail, wholesale and advertising. Customers are choosing Sky for a better choice of television and 2011 is shaping up to be our best year yet on screen. Our new channel, Sky Atlantic, has got off to an excellent start with 10 million viewers in the first two months. Alongside Sky 1 and Sky Living, it forms part of an outstanding entertainment line-up that will bring even more value to customers in the months ahead, including a growing commitment to U.K. drama and comedy. We remain cautious on the economic outlook for calendar 2011. Our approach in the current environment will be to stay flexible on costs while delivering for customers through a combination of great value, high-quality content, leading innovation and better service. As these results show, the whole team remains focused on executing our strategy.”