BSkyB has seen a major increase in the number of customers taking its on demand and internet connected services.
On the day Sky announced it would take control of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, the platform said the number of Sky Go customers increased by 19% over the year to 5.5 million. Viewing to Sky Go was up by a quarter to 16 million sessions a week by the end of the year. The addition of more content and on-demand functionality has driven an increase in viewing to entertainment and movies that accounted for 60% of all Sky Go views in the quarter to June 30, 2014.
TV growth of 264,000 was double the rate of the prior year.
Across the board an additional 3.1 million new paid for subscriptions were added during the year, 23% more than the prior year on an organic basis. Customers now take an average of 3 paid-for products from Sky.
As of June 30, 2014, BSkyB had 11.5 million retail customers, an increase of 342,000 over the year and 75,000 in the quarter. It added a third more customers than in the previous year, representing its highest growth rate in three years.
Adjusted revenue reached £7.6 billion, delivering slightly reduced profits of £1,260 million.
“We are making good progress in developing new revenue streams,” said Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch. “More than one million customers now take our premium mobile TV service, Sky Go Extra, and we’ve opened up the movie purchase market with our Buy & Keep service in Sky Store. In addition, Sky Bet grew strongly and we attracted new advertisers to Sky with our targeted advertising service AdSmart”.
There was another strong quarter in TV, another 76,000 products were added in Q4, though Sky does not separate the NOW TV streaming service from DTH subscriptions.
Total annual growth of 264,000 was the strongest growth in TV since hitting the 10-million mark in 2010.
In home communications, 341,000 net new broadband products were added during the year, 50,000 in the fourth quarter.
37% of customers took all three of TV, broadband and telephony from Sky, up 2 percentage points on the prior year.
Further Information
