TalkTalk has suffered subscriber losses in the months after last October’s cyber attack. The company says the attack impacted to the tune of £15 million with exceptional costs of between £40 and £45 million.
Subscriber numbers declined by 101,000, while RGUs fell back by 70,000, which the company says is as the result of the shutdown of its online sales channels in the wake of the attack.
CEO Dido Harding said January had seen a positive growth in RGUs once more. “It is encouraging to see the business returning to normal after a challenging quarter that was dominated by the cyber attack. Our customers have responded well, with almost half a million customers choosing to take up our unconditional offer of a free upgrade. Both churn and new connections recovered during December and January and independent external research has revealed that customers believe that we acted in their best interest.”
No new TV numbers were released with analyst Paolo Pescatore of CCS Insight expressing disappointment: “Traditionally it is a key quarter for all providers as underlined by BT and Sky’s results. It would seem that their success has had a huge impact on TalkTalk subscriber losses.”
Previously TalkTalk has reported over a million TV subs with higher YouView numbers than fellow partner BT.
