Sky has added another 600,000 connections to its Sky+ HD inventory at the same time casting off suggestions of a flat quarter with a further 30,000 TV sign ups.
The paycaster has seen a rapid take up in its connected TV services that now represent 2.3 million households. Once connected customers can enjoy a range of catch up and on demand content, including services from all the PSBs, as well as the new Sky Store.
In all there was subscription product growth of 715,000 in BSkyB’s third quarter. ARPU was up £30 year on year to reach £576 million.
Revenue of £5,381 million was up 6%, while operating profit of £994 million represented a 9% climb.
“The number of internet-connected Sky+HD boxes grew by almost 45,000 every week in the quarter, leading to a fivefold increase in On Demand downloads and 37% growth in movie rentals against last year. Alongside the expansion of our mobile video service with the launch of Sky Go Extra, these trends are opening up new sources of future growth and value creation,” commented Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch.
In total, more than 2.3 million Sky customers have now connected their Sky boxes to the internet, up from 600,000 a year ago.
The number of average weekly On Demand downloads in the quarter increased by almost 500% year on year to 4.5 million, while the number of movie rental transactions, through both Sky Store and Sky Box Office, increased 37% over the same time period.
Sky Movies reported more than 200 million on demand views over the last 12 months. There was also a new weekly record of 5.8 million downloads, driven by the launch of Sky Movies Disney, with Sky Movies accounting for nearly a third of all downloaded content during Easter week. There were 1.4 million on demand views of episodes from the first two seasons of Game of Thrones across Sky’s on demand services in the week following the launch of the third season.
Sky says customers that use the on demand services consistently report the highest levels of satisfaction. The result of which is that Sky will be dispatching free wireless connectors to a segment of its Sky Movies subscriber base,giving the customer access to over 1,000 titles in the Sky Store, and if purchasing levels hold up a good return on Sky’s investment.
Sky Go increased its unique users by 30% to 3.3 million. A record 319,000 customers used the mobile service to watch the recent UEFA Champions League match between Real Madrid and Manchester United.
The recently launched Sky Go Extra, which allows additional devices to be used, and for customers to download content had 44,000 subscribers at the end of the quarter.
An additional 550 jobs are being created with 200 within Sky retail sales and 350 in Sky’s customer service centre in Newcastle.
