Football boosts Telefónica as Spanish TV numbers jump

Telefónica added a massive 101,000 TV customers in Spain in the quarter to September, contributing to what it described as its “best commercial activity in at least 10 years”.

The jump in numbers, partly attributable to its hold on football rights and its ability to target Vodafone customers on that basis, compared with only 8,000 TV adds for the previous quarter. Telefónica said its TV growth in Spain was the best since its acquisition of pay TV operator DTS in 2015. The company now has 4.036 million TV customers in the country, up 7.2% year-on-year.

The operator added 81,000 customers to its Fusión converged offering in Spain the period, taking the total to 4.6 million. Fusión now accounts for 90% of the TV base in the country, 87% of the broadband base and 83% of the contract mobile base.

Telefónica grew its overall TV base by 5.6% year-on-year to 8.8 million.

In Brazil it added 50,000 IPTV customers, partly offsetting a decline in DTH numbers.

In Spanish speaking Latin America, overall pay TV numbers rose, with DTH numbers falling as the operator focused on IPTV and the Movistar Play OTT service, which is not included in its pay TV total. Telefónica also launched a Movistar pay TV service in Argentina in September.

Video revenues accounted for 44% of digital services revenues for the first nine months of the year, standing at €710 million for the quarter and €2.149 million for the nine months period. In addition to its Movistar pay TV customer total, Telefónica had one million active Movistar Play OTT customers in Latin America at the end of the period. The quarter also saw the addition of Netflix to the company’s Movistar platform in Chile, joining Colombia, Ecuador and the UK.

During the quarter, overall, the telco added 4.9 million LTE mobile customers, 1.9 mobile contract customers and 550,000 broadband customers

“Third quarter results reflect the solid execution of our strategic priorities. To begin with, both high-value customers and their average revenue continued increasing, with a strong level of net additions in mobile contract, including the best figure for Spain over the last ten years, LTE, fibre and pay TV,” said CEO José María Álvarez-Pallete.

“More and higher-value customers, coupled with stable churn rates, translates into higher business sustainability. If we add to that the wider coverage of our high-speed networks, the efficiencies we are already achieving in digitalisation and simplification, and the launch of Movistar Home via AURA, among others, we are further strengthening our future positioning.”