Cyfrowy Polsat sees bright future in multi-play strategy

Polish pay and free TV operator Cyfrowy Polsat saw a solid increase in pay TV numbers in the fourth quarter of 2016 thanks to the growing popularity of its multiroom service and increasing sales of OTT paid services.

Contract pay TV customers numbered 4.77 million at the end of 2016, up 5.8% year-on-year. Multiroom sales grew by over 85,000 year-on-year.

Cyfrowy Polsat said it now aims to maximize the cross-selling opportunity, combining the offers of Cyfrowy Polsat and mobile outfit Polkomtel, among other things, within the framework of its smartDOM converged services programme. ARPU in the fourth quarter increased by 2.7%, which the company attributed to its multi-play strategy.

As of December 31, 2016, each customer in Cyfrowy Polsat’s customer base had on average 2.25 active contract services, an increase of 5.6% compared to 2.13 active contract services per customer as of December 31, 2015.

The smartDOM programme, which combines multiple services, had 1.306 million customers at the end of the year.

The number of contract mobile telephony customers increased by 3.3% to reach 6,73 million.

Overall, Cyfrowy Polsat had 5.883 million contract customers at the end of the period, up 0.6%. the operator said the decline of its customer base slowed down in the second half and rose quarter-on-quarter in Q4.

Total RGUs numbered 16.5 million at the end of the year, more or less flat year-on-year, thanks to a decline in pre-paid customers. Contract RGUs grew by 5.1% to 13.3 million, including 1.8 million internet customers, up 10.2%.

Advertising and sponsorship revenue increased by 7.1% to PLN336 million (€78 million) in the quarter, outperforming the market. Overall Polsat Group revenue grew by 1.5% to PLN2.535 billion. EBITDA was PLN902 million, up 1.9%.