Swisscom’s IPTV operation Bluewin grew subscriber numbers by 100% in 2008, ending the year with 118,000 subscribers, the company confident that the growth potential was “far from exhausted”. The 100,000th customer was added in November.
Swisscom, which also owns the Italian broadband and IPTV outfit Fastweb, said the growth of both Bluewin and its mobile operations had helped offset price reductions forced by increased competition and regulatory pressures.
The company said it had managed to drastically reduced the installation costs associated with its IPTV service and that customers could look forward to the introduction of advanced services during 2009. Plans to further expand the VDSL technology to residential areas, introduced in Zurich, Basel and Geneva in September 2008, will increase the bandwidth available to Bluewin.
Swisscom’s net revenues of CHF12,198 million grew by 10% on the year, largely due to the Fastweb acquisition.