Teracom’s acquisition of the Finnish PlusTV business paid dividends for the transmission company’s pay-TV division in the first quarter.
Pay-TV segment revenues grew by 39% to SEK 685 million (€71.22m) with the Finnish operations accounting for 80% of the revenue growth. The operating margin declined by 19 percentage points following extensive marketing both in Finland and the relatively new territory of Denmark.
At the end of the first quarter 2010 the combined subscriber total of PlusTV and the two Boxer-branded operations in Sweden and Denmark stood at 957,611, falling back from 968,500 at the end of 2009, though with Finland now consolidated into the figures a significant increase on last year’s 680,473.
Eight new channels have been added to Boxer’s Swedish offer since the end of 2009, some using MPEG-4 compression.
Teracom Sweden also has a new head in the form of Stephan Guiance and there has also been a management reshuffle in Finland.