Proximus grows TV base and launches new converged pack for millennials

Belgian telco Proximus continued to grow its TV base in 2018, adding 50,000 customers in the course of the year to take its total to 1.611 million, up 3.2%. Proximus increased its TV market share by half a percentage point in the course of the year to take it to 37.3%.

Dominique Leroy

The company has also announced that is to launch a new converged offering targeted at millennials, Epic Combo, at the beginning of April. The offering will include “fixed and mobile internet access, music and social apps and free viewing of many video platforms, including the Proximus TV app and this on all screens”, according to Proximus CEO Dominique Leroy.

Proximus added 149,000 to its all-in Tuttimus/Bizz offers, ending the year with 508,000 customers for those offers.

The Belgian operator added 43,000 fixed broadband customers in the course of the year to take its total to 2.026 million, up 2.2%. the group also increased its contract mobile base by 3.5% to 4.016 million, but prepaid mobile fell by 14% to 822,000. Fixed voice fell by 4.1% to 2.516 million lines.

Proximus’ strong showing in TV and contract mobile helped boost it maintain its domestic Belgian revenue at €4.458 billion for the year. Domestic EBITDA rose by 1.9% to €1.713 billion.

Leroy said that despite a highly competitive environment, the company had secured further growth in its consumer base in the fourth quarter.

“Operating in a highly competitive environment, we achieved in the last quarter of 2018 further growth in our consumer base for Internet, TV and Mobile Postpaid, driven by our ongoing customer centricity efforts, dual-brand strategy and market segmentation approach. In the family segment, our successful year-end campaign attracted many more customers to our convergent all-in offers Tuttimus/Bizz All-in, with the base now reaching 508,000,” she said.

“The revamped mobile portfolio launched 1 November 2018, and the Epic offer designed for millennials drove a sound mobile customer growth. In the price-seekers segment, our no-frills brand Scarlet continued to grow its base, benefitting from a strong increase in brand awareness over the past year and occupying a competitive position on the low-end of the market.”