Sky’s HD services helped the broadcaster add an additional £39 (€43.1) per subscriber over the last 12 months. The ARPU (Average revenue per user) reached £469 as Sky+ HD put on another 287,000 net additions to reach 1.6 million households. Around 30% of customers joining took HD, up from 25% in the previous quarter.
In the quarter to September 30, 2009 Britain’s leading multichannel television provider added a further 94,000 subscribers to reach 9.536 million households. One sour note was an increase in annualised churn from 10.9% to 11.3%. In an analyst call Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch said the churn had been impacted by the combination of tightened credit procedures and the current smart card swapout that had so far been completed for seven million subscribers.
The linking of Sky’s broadband to its telephony service has also resulted in an increase in the number of customers taking TV, broadband and telephony. 17% of customers now take the triple play package as opposed to 12% in the prior year.
Revenues increased by 10% to £1.38bn and operating profit was up by 11% to £198 million.
The basic Sky+ PVR put on another 411,000 subscribers to reach 5,902 million households. Even the Multiroom product added 62,000 homes, 11,000 more than in the September quarter of 2008, to reach 1,897,000. Many households opt for Freeview on their second sets, but this may change when Sky introduces the ability to access content across the home from a single PVR.
Addressing Sky’s plans for a 3D channel, Darroch said it would most likely launch towards the backend of 2010. “We’re going to start small and that’s going to lead us to a pay-as-you go model”.