Swisscom reports strong TV gains

Swisscom reported a 14.2% year-on-year increase in TV customers in Q1, with more than a third of these now subscribing to its advanced television offering, Swisscom TV 2.0.

Announcing its first quarter results, Swisscom said that it now has 1.20 million TV customers, compared to 1.05 million at the same time a year earlier. In Q1 alone it added 36,000 TV customers.

By the end of March, Swisscom also reported 441,000 Swisscom TV 2.0 customers and said “most of whom had upgraded from a previous Swisscom offering to a higher quality bundled offering.”

Swisscom launched its TV 2.0 offering in April 2014, offering functions such as live pause, recording and channel replay, as well as online live TV and catch-up options both through the browser and iOS and Android Apps.

“The trend towards bundled offerings with flat-rate tariffs continues. By the end of March 2015, the number of customers using a bundled package had increased year-on-year by 198,000 or 18.7% to 1.26 million,” said Swisscom.

It also said that the number of fixed and broadband lines grew by 75,000 or 4.1% year-on-year to 1.91 million.

Overall, Swisscom’s Q1 net revenue increased by 2.6% year-on-year to CHF2.89 billion (€2.78 billion). EBITDA declined by 0.9% to CHF 1.051 million and net income fell by 5.9% to CHF351 million, which Swisscom attributed to “lower operating income and higher net financial expense, which was largely attributable to foreign exchange losses.”