Com Hem is looking to fibre to increase the popularity of its Boxer DTT service.
Anders Nilsson, CEO, Com Hem Group says when asked many of those churning from Boxer say they would have stayed if a fibre broadband service had been made available.
“If there is a boxer customer that has access to broadband over fibre, we want to deliver over fibre,” Nilsson told an analyst call for the cablenet’s fourth-quarter results.
The introduction in the last week of Boxer’s fibre offer is in line with the company’s strategy of moving from a TV-centric to a broadband operator.
However, despite recent moves by Telia, Nilsson said Com Hem wasn’t considering a move off-net to an OTT-only service.
“It’s less and less box led and more app led and eventually we’re going to go completely boxless, that’s something we have in our plans, and other operators are planning that too. So no news there.
“In time we’re going to battle it out with Telia and Telenor on TV, but that’s something we’ve done since 1983 and we’ve done pretty well,” said Nilsson.
The company increased fourth quarter operating profits by 20% to SEK 228 million.
Digital-TV RGUs totalled 644,000, with growth of 6,000 TiVo customers, which reached a penetration rate of 38%.
Consumer ARPU remained at record high SEK 371 as a large portion of customers now subscribe to higher tier products. Consumer churn was 13.1% in the quarter, an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to Q3 as a result of an adjustment of low-ARPU DTV customers who are no longer eligible for the service.
Price increases are planned in two waves on March 1 and April 1. There is also a plan to reduce the number of customers on discounted price plans.
