“Strong start” for BSkyB
October 17, 2013
By Chris Forrester
BSkyB unveiled a strong set of numbers for its first quarter-year’s results with plenty of highlights to keep the market happy. Top line headlines included revenues up 7 per cent (to £1.843 million) and 800,000 new paid-for ‘subscription products’ which is a 50 per cent uplift on a year ago. Sky enjoyed 111,000 new broadband clients (up 9 per cent y-o-y).
Sky has been working hard to convert viewers to HDTV, and there’s been a record growth in Internet-connected Sky+HD box installs, up 642,000 to 3.4 million.
Core TV subscriptions saw modest net growth of just 37,000 during the quarter, and a total of 10.459 million television subs.
All this contributed to a useful increase in all-important ARPU of £17 to £559 per annum. However, as expected, Churn grew from 10.9 to 11 per cent.
However, the overall growth also represented extra costs in sales and marketing. Marketing costs were up £55 million to £320 million (2013: £265 million) “driven by a good customer response to our investment in connected services which was reflected in our strong product growth, and our above-the-line campaigns during the quarter. Subscriber management costs were up £19 million to £175 million (2013: £156 million) due to a combination of strong customer and product growth and incremental resource associated with the launch of NOW TV,” said Sky.