Polsat pay TV base declines but broadband and mobile subs rise

Polish pay TV service Cyfrowy Polsat – now renamed Polsat Box – saw its TV base decline by 40,000 in the year to June, despite growth in broadband and mobile subscribers.

Polsat Plus Group said the decline was in the number of satellite TV customers it served.

The group added 447,000 contract services in the year to June, excluding the consolidation of Netia Group’s results, growth of 3%. This included 461,000 additional mobile revenue-generating units, an increase of 5.6%, with growth resulting for cross-selling and “focusing on customers satisfaction” as well as demand for machine-to-machine services, according to Polsat.

Internet RGUs increased by 26,000 or 1.4%.

Overall, Polsat Plus Group had 4.96 million pay TV customers, 8.65 million mobile customers and 1.82 million internet customers at the end of the period.

The number of customers with bundled offerings reached 2.1 million at the end of Q2, up 67,000, with 28.3% of customers taking multiplay packages.

Overall, Polsat had just over 18 million RGUs at the end of the period, 85.6% of which took a contract service. The overall contract customers base amounted to 5.47 million. The company also had 2.6 million prepaid customers, up 2.8%.

ARPU among contract customers was up by 5.7% to PLN91.4 at the end of Q2, while ARPU for prepaid customers was up 2.8% to PLN22.

In the free-to-air TV market, the group saw advertising revenue jump by 55.2% year on year to PLN330 million in Q2 following last year’s pandemic-influenced crash. The group noted that it had outperformed the market recovery of 48.7%.

Polsat Plus Group’s overall revenues for Q2 were up by 10.4% to PLN3.16 billion, with increases in retail, wholesale and other revenues offsetting a decline in equipment sales. EBITDA was PLN1.141 billion, up 13.9% on an adjusted basis.