Sky records yearly rise in sales
Broadcasting giant Sky posted a 24% increase in operating profit to £573m for the last six months of 2017.
It said like-for-like revenues rose 5% to £6.7 billion in the half-year, while underlying earnings lifted 15% to £1.2 billion.
Sky said it added 365,000 new customers to 22.9 million in its first half, with 20 million pay as you go buys - up 8%.
Jeremy Darroch, group chief executive of Sky, cheered an "excellent" set of results.
He said: "This performance reflects the investment choices we have made in recent years, allowing us to more than offset the pressure on consumer spending across Europe, as more customers continue to choose Sky for more of their services.
"Operationally we've seen good customer demand for our products and services. We now have almost 23 million customers taking 61.7 million paid-for-products and making 20 million pay-as-you-go buys in six months. In addition, we have made further strong progress on operational efficiency, keeping operating costs flat in absolute terms.
"We expect the consumer environment to remain challenging, however we remain confident in our strategy and our ability to execute our plans," he added.
