What do Orange’s latest results tell us about its performance in the TV markets in Central and Eastern Europe it is present in?
Looking at Poland, we see that its TV subscriber base grew for at least the sixth quarter in a row in Q2, ending June on 803,000, or 6,000 more than three months earlier. However, while the IPTV segment also reflected this growth, up from 200,000 to 213,000 in Q2, the DTH subscriber total fell from 597,000 to 590,000 over the same period.
Interestingly, contained within the total TV subscriber figure was that for nc+ packages, whose take-up continued to increase, up from 190,000 to 194,000 in the three months to June 30.
In another good sign, Orange’s triple play offer (TV, fast broadband and VoIP) also grew in popularity, with the 547,000 total as of June 30 up by 16,000 on three months earlier. However, triple play ARPU fell in the quarter, own from PLN60.3 to PLN60.2.
Significantly, Orange added the following note in their results in Poland: “Please note that internal control has detected an inaccuracy in the reporting of the TV customer base as of June 2016 and prior periods. Management has undertaken necessary measures to investigate the problem. This investigation has been still on going at that moment of release of the results for 1 H2016. It is estimated that the inaccuracy does not exceed 6% of the reported TV base at the end of June 2016. This inaccuracy has no impact on the financial results of the company”.
Unfortunately, the figures available for Orange’s operation in Slovakia are less detailed. In a company release, Orange Slovakia gave the total number of customers to its fixed services at 198,000, of which more than 83,000 received digital TV. At the same time, its parent company gave the total number of fixed broadband subscribers in Slovakia as 158,000.
Meanwhile in Romania, we learned, through information published by Media Expres rather than Orange itself, that the DTH service Orange Home TV had 305,000 subscribers as of June 30.
Furthermore, the Orange TV Go app, giving access to over 80 channels and more than 500 films and TV episodes, had reached 1.8 million downloads and updates, with the average number of monthly users in H1 2016 57% higher than in the same period last year.
The general picture to be gleaned from the results was one of Orange’s TV services holding their own in what are highly competitive markets.
