There has been strong growth for the Company, despite a tough environment, as customers respond positively to HD. More and more customers are selecting Sky TV and are also saving with Sky Broadband and Sky Talk. Results include...
- Strong net customer growth of 80,000, up 43 percent from the prior year, to reach 9.318 million households
- Very strong customer response to Sky+HD with 243,000 net additions; more than one million Sky households now receive HD
- Sky+ surpasses five million households with 406,000 net additions in the quarter
- 1.4 million customers, 15 percent of the base, now take all three of TV, broadband and telephony, up from 0.8 million in the prior year
- Invested in high quality content with 33 HD channels and acquired key rights in sports, movies and entertainment
- Strong revenue growth, continued focus on managing costs
- Adjusted revenue up 7 percent to 3,960 million pounds; reported revenue of 3,996 million pounds
- Good progress in costs helps to offset upfront investment of meeting record demand for Sky+HD
- Adjusted operating profit up by 13 percent to £589 million; reported operating profit of 622 million pounds, up 23 percent
- Adjusted operating margin up by 0.8 percentage points to 14.9 percent
- Adjusted basic EPS growth of 13 percent to 19.2 pence; basic EPS of 9.7 pence
- Strong free cashflow of 264 million pounds, reducing net debt to £1,670 million
Additionally, Sky has announced the total number of Sky+HD customers has passed the one million mark for the first time, after record sales in the first three months of 2009. The growing popularity of HD)TV has also contributed to the continuing rapid growth of Sky+, which comes as standard with all Sky+HD boxes. Including the Sky+HD customer base, Sky+ is now in more than five million homes, almost one in five of all homes in the U.K. and Ireland. The number of Sky+HD customers grew by 243,000 in the first three months of 2009. This represented a five-fold increase on the rate of growth in the same period of the previous year. By March 31, 2009, the total number of Sky+HD customers stood at 1.022m, up from 465,000 a year earlier. The success of Sky+HD and Sky+ contributed to continued growth in Sky’s total customer base, which grew by 80,000 to 9.318 million in the quarter. Sky launched the U.K.’s first national HD service in May 2006 ,which has since become Europe’s most successful HD service. Today Sky+HD customers can watch 33 HD channels for 12,000 hours a month.