Freesat claims 200% connected customer increase

Freetime by Freesat

Freesat claims it has increased the customer base of its connected service, Freetime, by 200% year-on-year in the first half of 2015.

The UK free-to-air satellite operator reported an overall increase of 19,000 Freesat customers in the first half of the year and said it ended the second quarter with more than 1.9 million users – though it wouldn’t break down the proportion of Freetime customers.

“Increased awareness and understanding of the Freetime service has resulted in Freetime sales growing by 48% year-on-year for the first six months of 2015,” said the company, announcing a “solid half year” performance.

The Freetime service is available on TVs and set-top boxes and includes features such as pause, rewind and record, a seven-day roll-back TV guide and a range of catch up players including BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, Channel 4’s All4 and Channel 5’s Demand 5.

In July Freesat partnered with Humax to launch the HDR-1100S set-top box, and said the expansion of Freetime will continue with several new manufacturer partnerships.