Sky shakes off competition with profit rise despite Champions League loss
Sky has shaken off rivals with a 10 per cent rise in profits while a 77 per cent surge in broadband subscribers was its biggest quarterly growth in four years.
Operating profit across Sky Europe of £375m was slightly ahead of expectations for the three months to the end of September on revenue of £2.8bn, which grew six per cent.
Sky added 133,000 new UK broadband subscribers amid ever hotter competition for TV, broadband, phone and “quad play” customers with BT, Virgin and TalkTalk.
The loss of UEFA Champions League broadcast rights to BT Sport failed to dent Sky with customer churn falling in the quarter.
“We added over 130,000 new customers in the quarter, up seven per cent on the previous year, which means that we've added almost a million new customers over the past twelve months, up 51 per cent year on year and total product base now exceeds 54m.” said chief executive Jeremy Darroch.
“Our investments in content are driving a great performance on screen, with highlights this quarter including record viewing of Sky Atlantic in the UK, of the Bundesliga in Germany and the X Factor in Italy.”
Shares closed 2.3 per cent up after trading as much as three per cent higher throughout the day.