IBC 2010 – AMSTERDAM. The Czech/Slovak pre-pay DTH platform Skylink now has 1.2 million active smartcards, according to Jaromir Glisnik, the CEO of TradeTec.
Speaking in a seminar organised by SES Astra, he added that Skylink sold almost 400,000 cards in 2009 and will sell even more this year.
This will be largely down to a sudden surge in sales following a clampdown on piracy by the rival platform Digi TV in August.
Thanks to this, Skylink sold almost 100,000 cards in the month that followed. Recently, Skylink has been selling 80,000 cards a month.
Glisnik also revealed that around 15-17% of Skylink’s customers opt for pay-TV services. Skylink, which is distributed from the 23.5 degrees East orbital slot, is one of SES Astra’s main customers in the CEE region.
Marcin Ornass-Kubicki, VP and Chief Regional Officer, Astra Central Europe, identified the others as CS Link (which also serves the Czech Republic and Slovakia from 23.5 degrees East), AKTA (Romania, 5 degrees East), Nova TV (Croatia, 23.5 degrees East) and TVP (Poland, 19.2 degrees East).
