Deutsche Telekom TV numbers boosted by Digi Slovakia deal

Deutsche Telekom recorded “significant gains” in Europe in the third quarter, including 361,000 new TV customers, which is it attributed in part to its acquisition of Digi Slovakia earlier this year.

Announcing its quarterly results, Deutsche Telekom said that as of September 30 it had a total of 3.4 million European TV customers for IPTV, satellite and cable services – up 21.8% year-on-year and 11.7% compared to the previous quarter.

“[The] TV business again proved to be a consistent growth driver in the first nine months of 2013. The total TV customer base increased by 17.4% compared with the end of 2012 to 3.4 million, driven mainly by the increase in satellite TV customers,” said Deutsche Telekom.

The firm said that this was mainly driven by an increase in satellite TV customers and that Slovakia made a “significant contribution” due to the buyout of Digi Slovakia.

The €53 million acquisition was agreed in May, approved by the Slovak competition authority at the end of July, with the company becoming part of the Deutsche Telekom business on September 1.

Other TV gains noted by Deutsche Telekom in the last quarter include subsidiary T-Mobile Austria’s inclusion of television in its product portfolio with the launch of simpliTV. This offers up to 40 terrestrial TV stations, nine of them in high definition and has been available in all its Austrian shops since mid-September 2013, said Deutsche Telekom.

Overall in the third quarter, the Deutsche Telekom Group reported revenues of €15.5 billion, up 6.0% year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA fell by 2.6% over the same time period to €4.7 billion due to “investments in customer growth”. Net profit was €588 million compared to a loss of €7.0 billion last year.