Altice Portugal aims for pay-TV lead by year end
August 2, 2019
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Altice Portugal expects that its pay-TV unit Meo will become the market leader by the end of 2019.
Speaking to journalists, financial director Alexandre Matos said Meo is rapidly approaching pay-TV market leader NOS, and should overtake its rival by the beginning of 2020 at the latest.
Altice Portugal’s Q2 2019 results show it added 11,900 subscribers during the quarter and 63,000 over the past year, taking the total to 1.4 million. Significantly, the operator continues to lead in net additions, accounting for more than 50 per cent of the market in Q2 2019.
For its part, NOS said it ended the period April-June with 1.61 million pay-TV subscribers, of which 1.33 million fixed access (+3,400 net addition) and 287,400 DTH (-3,000). Premium sports continued to underperform with channel subscriptions down by 7.2 per cent year-on-year.
According to the latest data available from the National Communications Authority (Anacom), there were 3.9 million pay-TV subscribers in December 2018, with NOS accounting for 41.2 per cent and Meo 39.2 per cent.