KPN loses TV customers

KPN lost 13,000 TV customers in the third quarter, taking its total TV base to 2.34 million. The bulk of the losses came from the Digitenne digital-terrestrial offer, but KPN’s IPTV base failed to grow, with the loss of 2,000 customers on top of the loss of 7,000 for the platform in the previous quarter.

KPN said that its decline in broadband and IPTV customers was mainly driven by the integration of the Telfort brand as its acquisition of customers at the lower end of the market was discontinued.

Fixed ARPU increased 5.4% year-on-year to € 48 in Q3 2019, mainly driven by price adjustments in June, higher inflow ARPU following the integration of Telfort and a declining customer base for legacy telephony and Digitenne services.

KPN also lost 17,000 broadband customers, adjusted for migrations from consumer to the proposition for small businesses and new customers for this proposition, who numbered 7,000.

Fixed revenues overall grew 0.1% year-on-year. Increasing revenues from bundled services were largely offset by lower revenues from legacy services, the operator said.

The telco said that its consumer business had been hit by a mix of strategic decisions and ongoing competition. It pointed to growth in converged fixed-mobile households, up 5,000 to account for 49% of the broadband base, up from 45% last year.

“Overall, we made good progress on the execution of our strategy in the third quarter and our financial results were solid. Our quarterly performance continues to reflect a mix of an ongoing competitive environment and the impact of our strategic actions. The integration of the Telfort brand and customer migrations in our business segment have an adverse effect on revenues in the short to medium term. On the other hand, we continue to execute strong and disciplined cost control resulting once again in solid growth in adjusted EBITDA after leases,” said new CEO Joost Farwerck.