Spanish cableco ONO has recorded a positive net income for the first time, the €50 million it posted in 2009 contrasting with a loss of €26 million a year earlier.
EBITDA meanwhile exceed market expectations to reach €730 million (+4.2%), while the EBITDA margin grew by 4.6 percentage points to reach 48.3% and cash flow by 56% to €510 million.
ONO ended 2009 with 1,901,844 residential customers, or 17,000 fewer than a year earlier, though a slight upturn (+0.7%) was noted in the fourth quarter. ARPU in the residential cable sector stood at €51.0, down 4% on a year earlier. Take-up of triple play services meanwhile rose from 34% of ONO’s customer base at the start of the year to 36% at the end of Q4.
Although the number of pay-TV customers fell by 6.2% to 975,000 in 2009, much of this reduction was seen in the lower value ‘TV Essentials’ product and the higher value ones secured another 24,000 customers.
ONO also saw growth in its broadband internet subscriber total, which rose by 3.4% in 2009 to reach 1,326,000.