Sky Operating Profit Up 26 Percent in First Half

LONDON: Boosted by growth in its subscriber base, BSkyB reported first-half revenues of £3.2 billion, up 15 percent, delivering an operating profit of £520 million and an EBITDA of £677 million.

The platform surpassed the 10 million customer milestone in the period, recording 140,000 net additions. The HD base was up 68-percent to 3.5 million subs, while the broadband base grew by 204,000 net additions. The platform says that 24 percent of customers now subscribe to its triple-play offering.

“The business has delivered a half year of outstanding performance, with record product sales and strong double-digit growth in revenue, profit and cash flow," said Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of BSkyB. "In the second quarter, we saw strong demand across the board, passing our target of 10 million customers and adding more than one million additional subscription products for the first time. In particular, high definition continued to grow strongly and we achieved our highest broadband growth for more than two years. Overall, almost one in four customers now choose to take all three of TV, broadband and telephony from us, which is contributing to further strong ARPU growth and good levels of customer loyalty. Looking ahead, we are cautious on the economic outlook for 2011, while remaining very confident in the long term opportunity for the business. We intend to maintain our consistent strategy of pursuing both growth and returns, by balancing sensible investment with a strong emphasis on operational efficiency."

He continued, “In this context, we will focus on giving even more value and better service to customers in 2011. Next week, customers can look forward to the launch of Sky Atlantic, a premium channel featuring outstanding entertainment from the U.S. and the U.K., available to Sky TV customers at no additional charge. Later in the year, we will launch a new service, Sky Anywhere, to make it easier for customers to enjoy our programmes wherever they are. And we will open a new facility in Sheffield as the next step in a program to expand our network of contact centres, which will deliver an improved experience for customers and result in around 1,500 new Sky jobs around the U.K."