Telefónica returned to growth in the Spanish pay-TV market in the second quarter, gaining 51,000 more subscribers.
This contrasted with a loss of 41,000 in Q1 and has been put down to new customers and migration from low-value options to the Fusión + Ocio bundle launched in April, which had 151,000 subscribers as of the end of June.
Meanwhile, the penetration of Movistar Fusión reached 85% in broadband, 84% in TV and 77% in mobile contract as of the end of Q2. Fusión continued growing in value, which was reflected in the customers with UBB fibre (38%, +7 p.p. y-o-y) and TV (70%, +3 p.p.) and in the high-value bundles (24%, +3 p.p. q-o-q). The quarterly ARPU stood at €84.8 and accelerated its year-on-year growth to 6.4%, while churn was reduced compared to the previous quarter to 1.3%.
Telefónica as a whole had revenues of €12,960 million in Q2, or 1.9% more than in the corresponding quarter in 2016. OIBDA was €4,158 million (+6.1%) and net income €821 million (+18.4%).
Commenting on the results, José María Álvarez-Pallete, Telefónica’s executive chairman, said:
“During the second quarter of the year we have accelerated organic growth through the execution of our structural quality-based strategy, which was reflected in the strong competitive positioning in our main markets. Moreover, we continued to make progress in our transformation towards becoming a platform company, with CapEx devoted to UBB networks, underpinning E2E digitalisation and cognitive intelligence, with a differential value proposition for customers. All this, with a stronger balance sheet, after doubling Free Cash Flow in the last twelve months and reducing net debt by €5 billion, when considering the sale of the stake in Telxius.
“The strength and better business trends in the first half of the year, as well as being well-positioned to continue capturing sustainable growth in the coming quarters, allow us to upgrade our guidance for 2017”.
