Telefónica reverses pay-TV sub decline
July 31, 2017
From David Del Valle in Madrid
The launch of new convergent packages on Movistar Plus is reversing the downward trend in subscribers to Telefónica’s IPTV service. In the second quarter of the year, its pay-TV gained 51,000 subs versus a loss of 41,000 the previous quarter, reaching 3.666 million subscribers at the end of June.
The growth was boosted by new customers and migration from low-value options to the Fusion + Ocio bundle launched in April, which had 151,000 clients as of June 30th, according to the company.
However, the subscriber rise in the quarter has not prevented a year-on-year decline of 1.7 per cent, as in June 2016 the company had 3.755 customers.
Movistar Plus is increasingly relying on convergent packages to capture more subscribers boosting its Movistar Fusión packages, which currently have a penetration of 84 per cent in TV.
In early July, Movistar Plus dropped pricing significantly on its quad-play offers, with the launch of Movistar Fusion#0 and Movistar Fusion Series, and at the same time added advanced features such as network recording and seven-day catch-up.