Swisscom grows TV base despite saturated market

Swisscom managed to grow its TV base by 2.4% to 1.56 million in the year to December, despite what the company described as a saturated market driven by promotional offers.

Swisscom’s broadband base remained stable at 2.03 million, while fixed line telephone subscribers declined by 126,000 over the year to 1.52 million.

Swisscom claimed strong success for its bundle offerings, including premium service inOne. InOne customers numbered 2.75 million at the end of the year.

Swisscom CEO Urs Schaeppi hailed Swisscom’s launch of its new TV box, which he said “takes the TV experience to the next level” in a note accompanying the earnings release. The box includes an integrated voice assistant that can be used to control smart home applciations in addition to the TV.

Schaeppi said that the biggest challenge facing Swisscom remains market saturation, competition and price pressure.

He said that Swisscom had covered 90% of the Swiss population with a basic version of 5G as at the end of 2019, while the company continued to work towards the goal of doubling FTTH coverage from current levels by 2025.

Swisscom reported net revbenues of CHF11.5 billion (€10.7 billion) for the full year, down 2.2%, while EBITDA rose by 3.4$% to CHF4.4 billion. Revneues in the domestic market declined by 2.8%m attributed to price pressure and the deline of fixed telephony. Italian subsidiary Fastweb gfew its revenues by 5.4% to €114 million.