TeliaSonera’s TV business is providing a welcome distraction from the problems in its core telecoms business.
Telia now offers its Swedish customers a mirror of their TV package on the computer. Known as Play+ it offers a total of 29 channels and includes a video on demand library of more than 1,300 movie titles.
TV revenues increased by 13% to SEK 1,248 million, though clearly not sufficient to compensate from a decline in fixed line revues and the difficulties surrounding the monetization of data services.
In Finland the consumer segment grew by more than 9% as TV enjoyed a 15% increase in subscriptions. But at the opposite end of the scale business subscriptions fell by 4%.
In Sweden, net sales fell 3.6%to SEK 5,051 million (5,225). Revenues from TV and broadband grew strongly by 24 percent and 55 percent, respectively, but failed to fully compensate for loss of PSTN subscriptions and lower traffic revenues.
Estonia has also seen a significant increase in TV subs.
The total number of TV subscriptions rose by 143,000 from the second quarter of 2011 and by 30,000 during the quarter to 1.2 million.