Sky adds 1,000 customers a week

Satellite broadcaster Sky Ireland added 13,000 new customers in the quarter to the end March and now has 548,000 subscribers.

Satellite broadcaster Sky Ireland added 13,000 new customers in the quarter to the end March and now has 548,000 subscribers.

This is a slower rate of growth than the previous quarter when the broadcaster added 22,000 new customers.

Sky Ireland claimed that the of Sky digital customers was equivalent to over a third of all households and that it was adding 1,000 new customers a week.

When Ireland and Britain are combined Sky added 56,000 digital satellite subscribers in the quarter to reach 8.88 million. The equivalent growth rate for the three months to the end of December was 167,000 new customers.

Revenue for the nine months to March 31st increased 10 per cent on the comparable period to £3.7 billion (€5.22bn) with operating profits of £504 million (€709m).

The overall churn rate, which measures the number of customers leaving BSkyB, was 10.5 per cent in the third quarter, lower than the 13.7 per cent in the year-ago period although higher than 10.0 per cent seen in the second quarter.

New customer additions fell to 289,000 from 340,000 in the same period last year as the company reduced its discount packages and started to charge for installation.

The company will also book a further £131 million impairment charge for its ITV stake, which brings the total to £474 million in the nine-month period.