An intense anti-piracy campaign has been conducted in Greece in recent months by several authorities with the main operators to combat illegal connections. This, along with premium content, may well have helped the incumbent telco OTE, which in its latest results says that it ended the third quarter with 665,261 TV subscribers. This was 3.3% (+21,484) more than a yar earlier, with 17,364 added in Q3 alone.
OTE also had 2,345,916 (+2.1% y-o-y) fixed broadband subscribers at the end of Q3, of whom 1,525,878 (+6.7%) were FTTx and 215,710 (+96.1%) FTTH. Its FTTH footprint reached 1,148,000 homes passed at the end of September and should exceed 1.3 million by the end of the year.
OTE’s consolidated revenues in Q3 were €881 million (-2.6%) and adjusted EBITDA €352.6 million (-1.5%). Its net profit was €150 million (-6.4%).
As previously reported by Broadband TV News, the pirating of pay-TV content in Greece has been estimated to be worth up to €160 million a year.