Digital TV update - Q2 2010
Digital satellite - pay households
3.5 BSkyB's Q2 results reported a 90,000 quarterly increase in subscribers, taking its total UK and Ireland subscriber base to 9,860,000, up 418,000 over the past year. Based on historic additions for the UK and Ireland, we estimate that around 350,000 of these were new UK customers in the year to Q2 2010.
3.6 The number of subscribers taking the Sky Multiroom service (which enables an additional set in the home to receive Sky) rose by 59,000 during Q2 to 2,121,000 (with 286,000 additions over the past year). This means that over a fifth (22%) of Sky customers have at least one extra set connected to a pay satellite service, in addition to their primary set.
3.7 The high-definition Sky + HD service added 429,000 subscribers in Q2, the second highest quarterly additions for the product so far, just above 428,000 in Q1 2010. With almost 1.6 million additions over the past year, total HD subscriptions are now over 2.9 million, equivalent to 29.8% of all Sky subscribers.
3.8 By September 2010, 46 HD channels were available on this service, up from 41 in Q1, and Sky plans to provide 50 HD channels by the end of 2010. BSkyB announced in its Q4 results that Sky + HD customers would be able to access new services including 3D television and video on demand, to be launched later in 2010.
3.9 Annualised average revenue per user (ARPU) reached a new high in Q2, of £508, up by £5 per annum on the previous quarter and by £44 year on year. By the end of Q2, a fifth (20% or almost 2.0 million) Sky customers took three services - TV, broadband and telephony. Churn - the proportion of subscribers ending contracts - increased year on year and quarter on quarter by the same amount, up by 0.6% from 9.9% to 10.5% in Q2 2010.
Chart
