NOS sees stronger take up of pay TV services

Portuguese service provider NOS saw stronger take up of pay TV services in the third quarter, with 14,200 net pay TV adds contributing to RGU growth of 39,700 overall.

NOS said that fixed access growth more than offset the ongoing decline in its DTH satellite base. It said that fixed broadband grew in line with the pay TV base, reflecting the fact that broadband lines tend to be sold on top of pay TV offers.

While TV numbers were up, in comparison with the same period last year, total premium channel subscriptions remained flat. Subscriptions did grow by 6% in comparison to the previous quarter, driven by a boost in sports channel subscriptions with the start of the football season. NOS said that premium sport subscriptions are starting to show “tenuous signs of recovery” versus previous quarters, but premium channels still posted negative revenue growth due to a greater weight of lower priced channels in the mix.

The operator said that it had introduced more flexible convergent fixed and mobile options over the summer and that it had redefined convergent customers and ‘convergent and integrated’, counting customers who are invoiced for fixed and mobile services on the same monthly bill. The company counted 914,800 customers taking these offers at the end of the quarter, representing 59.1% of its fixed base.

NOS had 1.347 million pay TV customers at the end of the quarter, along with 284,000 DTH customers. Fixed pay TV customers were up 17,500 while DTH was down by 3,300. Fixed broadband customers numbered 1.406 million, up 12,500.

NOS posted revenues of €403.4 million for the quarter and EBITDA of €173.4 million.