HDTV-Reviews.co.uk

Wednesday, 02 August, 2006

Sky Ireland subscriptions reach 407,000

Across Ireland, the number of homes subscribing to Sky Digital hit 407,000, as of 31 March, up 52,000 from the same period in 2005. This latest figure represents 27% of Irish homes.

Sky Ireland’s deputy managing director, Mark Deering, said passing the 400,000 milestone was a “real achievement for Sky Ireland” and promised more innovations in the near future, including the launch of high-definition television on 22 May.

Sky’s (HDTV) services will reportedly feature movies, sports, entertainment, documentary and arts channels with enhanced picture and sound quality.

Delia Bushell, managing director of Sky Ireland, called the past 12 months “an outstanding year” for Sky Ireland and referred to the “significant investment” made in new services and customer innovations, including mobile TV, movie downloads as well as HDTV.

On a group-wide basis Sky’s customer growth was disappointing. The digital TV provider added just 40,000 customers in the first three months of the year, its slowest quarterly growth rate since it switched to a digital-only service five years ago. Sky’s total number of direct-to-home (DTH) digital satellite subscribers now stands at 8.1 million.

On the flip side though, there was strong growth in the number of people signing up for Sky+, the firm’s personal video recorder service, during the quarter. Sky added 149,000 customers to the service in the three months, representing its strongest performance excluding the pre-Christmas period.

Meanwhile, revenue for the nine months to 31 March increased by 9% to £3.1 billion (EUR4.5 billion), while profit for the period grew to £425 million (EUR625 million), up 10% on the year-ago period.

BSkyB’s chief executive James Murdoch appeared happy with the firm’s performance, claiming the firm was delivering on its plans for the year so far. He also highlighted the developments ahead for the year such as the imminent launch of HDTV services and the roll out of broadband in Britain.

“Our focus during the quarter was to successfully implement our new customer management systems, complete the final preparations for the launch of Sky HD, and continue to ready the business for the launch of residential broadband services in the summer,” Murdoch said, in a statement.