Telefónica sees shift in TV base

Spanish telco Telefónica saw an ongoing shift in its TV base towards higher value customers in the quarter to September, while its Latin American base was boosted by OTT TV offering Movistar Play.

Telefónica now has 9.8 million video customers globally. The telco increased its IPTV base by 13% year-on-year but satellite losses meant that its pay TV base declined by 2.8% to 8.6 million. The company said it also had 1.2 million active users of its Latin American OTT TV service Movistar Play.

Telefónica posted overall video revenues of €757 million for the quarter to September, representing 39% of digital revenues, up by 6.9%.

In Spain, Telefónica’s pay TV base was up just over 1%. The telco said that higher value pay TV customers grew while lower-value customers declined. During the third quarter, the operator lost 18,000 customers, which it said was due to the impact of its promotions calendar. Overall, Telefónica España had 4.1million TV customers at the end of the quarter.

Convergent IPTV and satellite TV customers in Spain were up 4.8% to 3.8 million.

In Brazil, Telefónica abandoned commercialising of satellite TV in the quarter, but saw its IPTV base rise by 27% year-on-year, with 33,000 net adds for the three months to September. Pay TV subscribers numbered 1.38 million, down 13.6%. Pay TV revenues were €102 million for the quarter, down 8%.

In the southern Latin American region, Telefónica reported 801,000 Movistar Play active users. Overall pay TV subscribers numbered 2.25 million, up 3.5%.

In the northern region, Movistar Play had 368,000 active users at the end of September. Overall pay TV numbers stood at 882,000, down 14.8%.

Analysts at Jefferies noted that Telefónica’s overall revenues were in line with consensus estimates and underlying operating income before depreciation and amortisation was 2.5% ahead. The analysts noted that Spain was showing signs of recovery against a soft Q2, reflecting a price increase for its Movistar Fusión product and weaker football promos.

Telefónica posted revenues of €11.9 billion for the quarter and OIBDA of €2.75 billion.