May 1st sees BSkyB unveil its Q3 results (to March 31st). Investment banker Morgan Stanley, in a note to clients, says it is anticipating increased revenues (of about 3.5 per cent to £1.913 billion) for the quarter year, helped by 70,000 new broadband subscribers. However, this is well down on the 152,000 added during the same period last year.

“Lower marketing focus and higher churn from O2 customers are contributing factors. The lower broadband adds roll through to our expectations for telephony and line rental,” says the bank.  As far as TV subscriptions are concerned, the bank also expects a y-o-y fall from last year’s 77,000 to around 30,000-37,000, although helped by continued buoyant demand for HDTV demand (105,000). All this will contribute to an unchanged ARPU level of £571 per year.

“We have subscription revenue growth of 4.3 per cent (H1+6.1 per cent). We forecast most of the other revenue lines on recent trend. The exception is ‘Other Revenues’ where we look for a £5 million fall in y-o-y revenues after 21 per cent growth in H1. This reflects the absence of c£10 million of licensing revenue for England internationals, lower sales of boxes to Sky Italia and a tough quarter for SkyBet following one weekend of ‘punter-friendly’ football results with a negative effect on net sales,” states the bank.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Virgin Galactic in stock split
2. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
3. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
4. Optimism under threat at SES
5. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
6. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
7. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
8. IRIS2 already in trouble?
9. Intelsat contemplates next steps

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