Advanced Television

Swisscom TV subs up 13.8% YoY

May 3, 2016

In the first quarter of 2016, Swisscom’s net revenue remained virtually unchanged year-on-year at CHF 2,885 million (CHF -8 million or -0.3 per cent). EBITDA rose by 2.9 per cent or CHF 30 million to CHF 1,081 million. The CHF 11 million increase in the Swiss core business can mainly be attributed to lower costs for subscriber acquisition and maintenance. Net income increased by CHF 13 million or 3.7 per cent to CHF 364 million, with foreign exchange losses having a bigger impact on the result in the prior year.

“We are well on track. In view of the difficult market conditions, I am satisfied with our business performance. We gained many new customers with Swisscom TV, broadband connections and Fastweb. Revenue remained more or less stable and EBITDA increased thanks to lower costs,” said CEO Urs Schaeppi. “The market is becoming increasingly saturated and growth in areas such as mobile telecommunications is becoming more difficult. The expansion of the national infrastructure will continue to call for a very high level of investment. Business in Italy is also going well, with Fastweb seeing growth in its revenue, EBITDA and customer base.”

Despite fierce competition with cable network operators, the number of Swisscom TV access lines rose year-on-year by 166,000 or 13.8 per cent to 1.37 million (+36,000 in the first quarter), two thirds of which use the cloud-based Swisscom TV 2.0 service. In April 2016, Swisscom launched a new, UHD-enabled TV-Box.

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