BSkyB unveils 14% rise in first-half profits
BSkyB unveiled a forecast-beating 14% hike in first-half profits today, after enjoying its best subscriber growth in three years.
The satellite broadcaster said pre-tax profits rose to £390m (€572m) in the six months to December 31, as a strong focus on customer acquisitions in the key pre-Christmas trading period paid off.
BSkyB today announced that the total number of Sky digital subscribers in Ireland was 393,000 at December 31, equivalent to 28% of all households. The net increase of 21,000 in the three months to the end of last year was Sky’s highest quarterly growth in four years.
Across the UK and Ireland, the total number of direct-to-home (DTH) digital satellite subscribers increased by 215,000 in the quarter to pass the eight million mark.
Sky said “churn” – the proportion of customers leaving for rival services - was 10.6% in the three months to the end of December, down by 1.1 percentage points on the previous quarter, reflecting the nature of Christmas trading and the fact that there were no price changes during the period.
Meanwhile, the number of households subscribing to Sky Plus, the service which allows viewers to pause live TV and record one satellite programme while watching another, increased by 254,000 in the quarter to 1.3 million.
Chief executive James Murdoch said: “Results like these reinforce our confidence that we will achieve our goal of 10 million customers in 2010.”
The firm said its priorities in the first half of the 2006 calendar year included the roll-out of residential broadband services and moving more subscribers to a new customer support system.
Against this background, it expected subscriber growth to be weighted towards the second half of this year. It expected to add around 100,000 net subscribers in the second half of the current financial year, which runs to the end of June.
