Africa boosts Canal Plus numbers as total for France declines

A strong performance by Canal Plus Overseas in Africa helped compensate for a flat performance in metropolitan France to boost Canal Plus’s overall subscriber base to 11.363 million last year.

Canal Plus recorded net growth of 147,000 subscriber in 2012, driven primarily by the overseas arm, which increased its base by 227,000 compared with 2011.

Canal Plus France had 9.680 million subscribers, a slight decrease year-on-year. ARPU increased marginally to €48 thanks to improved cross-selling between the Canal Plus and CanalSat offerings.

Canal Plus Group revenues increased by 3.2% year-on-year to €5.013 billion. The growth rate on a comparable basis, excluding former Bolloré free-to-air channels D8 ad D17 and the effect of its Polish agreement with TVN Group to create new platform nc+, amounted to 2.4%. EBITA excluding the new French channels and the Polish deal was up 1.9% to €714 million.

Parent company Vivendi saw flat sales growth, with revenues of €29 billion for the year. EBITA was €2.3 billion, down 10.7% at constant currency. Revenues from fixed line telecom subsidiary SFR fell by 7.3% to €11.3 billion thanks to price competition and the effects of regulatory intervention.