KPN has said its was adding 6,500 IPTV customers per week at the end of Q3 2011. The Dutch incumbent telco had 1.342 million TV customers, both IPTV and DTT, on September 30.
IPTV may be KPN’s saving grace as the telco’s broadband market share remained under pressure from competition. The company said this is partly offset by the growth of IPTV and FTTH activations. RGUs per customer increased steadily as the copper line loss is being offset by IPTV additions.
The number of FTTH homes activated increased to 77,000 (Q2: 61,000) in Q3. Full year line loss is expected to be similar to the line loss in 2010.
The third quarter showed a strong commercial momentum for IPTV. TV on iPad and laptop was introduced and the launch of multiroom IPTV was expanded further. Under the Telfort brand the IPTV product was launched as well, which supported an increase in net adds to 73,000 in Q3.
The run-rate of IPTV additions had increased to around 6,500 per week at the end of Q3. This good progress in TV is also reflected in a further increasing market share, reaching 17% compared to 14% in Q3 2010.
The total number of KPN’s TV customers is made up of homes subscribing to the DTT service Digitenne (853,000) and its IPTV service (471,000).
The TV ARPU increased by 22% y-on-y to €11 in Q3. The wireline innovation roadmap is on track, a 500 Mbps up- and download speed FTTH product and a new IPTV user interface will be launched in Q4 2011.
“Q3 results were broadly in line with our expectations, with Consumer wireless in a transition period. We made further progress in strengthening the business in The Netherlands, especially in Consumer wireline where we launched multiscreen IPTV and in Consumer wireless where we implemented new tariffs,” said Eelco Blok, CEO, KPN, in a statement.
