HD, On-Demand Helps Drive Growth at Sky

LONDON: British pay-TV platform BSkyB reported 873,000 new subscription products sold in the second quarter, a 42 percent gain on last year, with revenues up 7.6 percent to £3.75 billion ($6.2 billion) in the first half.

The company did, however, report reduced profits of £595 million ($985 million), an 8 percent drop, partly due to costs related to Premier League rights. EBITDA was flat at £813 million ($1.4 billion).

"We had a very good first six months of the year as we reaped the benefits of our broader-based approach to growth," said Jeremy Darroch, chief executive at BSkyB. "In a consumer environment that remains challenging, customers continued to choose to take Sky products in ever greater numbers in the run-up to Christmas, with Q2 growth up by over 40 percent on last year. In the last 12 months, we have added 3.8 million paid-for subscription products, the fastest rate of annual growth in three years."

He added, “The investments we are making to accelerate growth in connected TV services are delivering excellent results. We added a record 1 million connected Sky+HD boxes in Q2—almost 11,000 a day—to take our base of connected homes to 4.4 million. This explosive growth means that Sky has quickly established itself as Britain’s biggest connected TV platform and, with millions of customers yet to connect their boxes, there is still a big opportunity ahead. Everything that we see tells us that customers love the benefits that come with the connected box. On Demand usage more than trebled year on year and the number of movie rentals through Sky Store doubled as customers responded to greater flexibility and choice. More customers than ever are choosing Sky Go to watch content both in and out of the home, helped by the addition of 14 new entertainment channels and the launch of Sky Go on more connected devices. We continue to see significant opportunity for accelerated growth and returns as we use our innovation to differentiate our offering and give Sky customers the best ways to enjoy our content."

The platform had 10.5 million TV customers at the end of 2013, with 5 million paying HD customers and 643,000 Sky Go Extra customers. ARPU rose to £570 ($940) and churn was up slightly to 10.8 percent. Sky ended Q2 with 11.3 million retail customers, net growth of 106,000, 20 percent higher year on year.