Tele2 says it’s expecting “elevated churn” to its Boxer and Comhem brands following the shutdown of TV4 channels to the platform at the end of December.
The popular commercial channel and its premium brand C More were removed in December after Comhem failed to reach an agreement with new owners – and telco rival – Telia over their continued carriage.
Last week, Comhem reacted angrily to plans by Telia to also bundle its streaming services in a package to be offered to just one other operator besides itself.
In the quarter to December 31, 2019, TV subs fell by 10,000 as Tele2 faced continued decline from the Boxer pay-DTT platform.
Comhem has now launched its own standalone OTT service, Comhem Play+, which the company says is a natural next step. It says it has ability to bundle the best of on demand content for both established TV customers and the “untapped pool” of customers who were never subscribers in the first instance. “Over time, we think Comhem Play+ could be a powerful tool to take share in a rapidly growing market where we are not currently present.”
In its fourth quarter financials, Tele2 confirmed it has completed the integration of cablenet Comhem into its main business ahead of schedule.
“This quarter marked the end of a transformative year as we completed the integration of Comhem and set Tele2 up for its journey to become the smartest telco in the world,” said CEO Anders Nilsson.
EBITDA in the fourth quarter grew by 10% to SEK 2.4 billion as the telco benefitted from synergies from the Com Hem merger in Sweden and continued strong performance in the Baltics.
Net profits of SEK 0.9 billion were in line with expectations.
