Advanced Television

Ziggo biggest loser as Dutch pay-TV subs drop

August 28, 2015

The Dutch pay-TV market lost 17,000 connections during Q2, to end the quarter with 7.85 million subscribers. The decline was mainly due to Ziggo losing customers, according to Telecompaper’s quarterly report on the Dutch television market.

Digital TV connections grew by 0.4 per cent during the quarter, while analogue-only subscribers fell by 4.4 per cent compared to March. Digital TV is now used by more than 88 per cent of the market. Cable still accounted for over half (52.9 per cent) of digital TV subscribers in Q2, despite losing market share to the increasingly available IPTV services over DSL and fibre networks. DSL was responsible for 18 per cent of the digital TV connections and fibre for almost 12 per cent at the end of June 2015.

Ziggo lost digital TV customers for the second quarter in a row, seeing its market share fall to just over 48 per cent. KPN added half a per cent point of market share in the quarter to take almost 31 per cent of digital TV connections. On the total TV market, Ziggo had around 53 per cent of connections, after again losing market share to KPN, which grew to almost 28 per cent of the market.

The report expects an average annual decrease of 0.3 per cent in the number of TV subscriptions in the period to 2019. Almost all households already have a TV connection and fewer are taking subscriptions for second TVs, in favour of watching video on consoles, computers and portable devices.

Telecompaper estimates that the TV services market generated €450 million in revenues in the second quarter of 2015, slightly lower than in the previous quarter.

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