Dutch cable operators continue to lose subscribers with Rekam now reporting just 50.06% penetration, and UPC 56.4%.
Ziggo’s market share is also shrinking, but the operator still serves 65.2% of all homes passed. The figures are taken from the Q2, 2014 reports by the Dutch news website Digitale Kabeltelevisie.
With Rekam’s market share now reaching an all-time low of just slightly more than 50%, this development shows that very small operators are suffering from lack of marketing power. Rekam serves 28,173 homes with two propositions: a low-cost basic subscription and an extended tier marketed by Caiway. With bigger budgets, both UPC and Ziggo seems to be able to defend themselves better against the increased competition.
The falling numbers are due to heavier competition on the Dutch marketplace with KPN aggressively marketing its IPTV service and a number of newcomers vying for customers including Online.nl, which is part of the M7 Group, Scarlet (now Stipte) and Sparql.
Interestingly, DTT and satellite DTH also continue to lose subscribers, according to Telecompaper. DTT now accounted for 8% of all digital reception at the end of Q1, 2014 (down from 11% in Q1, 2013) and satellite 11% (down from 12%).
Analysis by Digitale Kabeltelevisie also shows that Ziggo is losing customers to its pay and extended tiers – at the moment the operator serves 823,000 homes with additional channels, or 35.5% of its digital TV customer base.
