Telefónica’s TV subscriber numbers jump by 53%

Telefónica ended the first quarter with 5.47 million pay TV customers, up 53% year-on-year from 3.57 million. 

Announcing its Q1 results, Telefónica said that it added 379,000 TV customers in the quarter, more than triple the gains for the same quarter a year earlier.

It also said that penetration of pay TV over its consumer fixed broadband base stood at 41%, up 15 percentage points year-on-year.

Telefónica’s home market of Spain continued to be its leading pay TV market with 2.1 million customers, a threefold year-on-year increase, with 50% of its Movistar Fusion multiplay customers now having IPTV.

Overall, Telefonica said that customer numbers grew “in all business units and amounted to more than 319 million total accesses at the end of March.”

“The significant evolution of the higher-value services was noteworthy, thanks to an attractive offer, which enabled: the fibre customer base to be doubled year-on-year (2.1 million), an increase of 53% in pay TV customers (5.5 million), LTE customers to be multiplied by 5.1 (13.7 million) and an increase in smartphones of 57% (91.4 million); while numbers of mobile contracts grew at a rate of +18%,” said Telefonica.

In the quarter, the firm reported consolidated revenues of €11.5 billion, up 12.6% year-on-year. Net income rose by 162% year-on-year to €1.80 billion.