Telenet boosted by strong digital TV performance

John Porter

Liberty Global-owned Belgian cable operator Telenet reported a 7% year-on-year increase in digital TV customers with wider gains across its fixed-line services of digital TV, broadband and telephone.

Announcing its third quarter results, Telenet said that as of September 30 it served 1.57 million digital TV customers, having added 37,200 net digital TV subscribers in the quarter.

“Relative to the preceding quarters, we saw a strong uptake in the number of net digital TV subscriber additions following the phasing-out of our SD video platform,” said Telenet.

Subscribers to the firm’s basic analogue and digital cable TV services decreased by 2,800 to 2.074 million at the end of the quarter, which Telenet said was a “marked improvement” compared to the net organic loss of 5,800 basic cable TV subscribers in Q2 2014.

It also said that approximately 75% of Telenet’s basic cable television subscribers were now generating incremental ARPU on its interactive digital TV platform compared to around 70% a year ago.

Telenet’s multiscreen OTT service Yelo TV had 423,900 active users as of September 30, while its subscription video-on-demand packages, Rex and Rio, had nearly 127,300 customers up 13% quarter-over-quarter.

“In the third quarter, we added 83,400 net subscribers to our advanced fixed services of digital TV, broadband internet and fixed telephony, up 66% compared to the preceding quarter and up 33% compared to the third quarter of last year,” said Telenet CEO, John Porter.

“At the end of September 2014, approximately 49% of our customer base subscribed to all three fixed services with the number of triple-play subscribers up 11% year-on-year to just over one million now. The higher share of multiple-play and digital TV subscribers in the overall customer mix resulted in a 5% year-on-year increase in the ARPU per unique customer relationship, reaching €50 for the first time in the third quarter.”

Overall, Telenet reported revenues for the nine months ending September of €1.271 billion, up 4% year-on-year. Operating profit over the same period was up 12% to €414.5 million, though net profit was down 53% to €71.4 million.