Strong TV performance lifts Telefónica

Telefónica had 3.6 million pay TV customers globally, up 8% year-on-year, at the end of March, with growth being driven by a recovery in Spain as well as double-digit growth in Latin America.

In Spain, Telefónica saw overall growth of 11% in pay TV subscribers. The company ended March with 730,300 TV customers, up 58,000 on the previous quarter.

Telefónica added108,000 fibre customers in the quarter, taking its base to 701,000, double the previous year’s figure.

The strong performance, along with growth in mobile and fibre, helped slow the rate of decline in the company’s overall domestic revenues. The company posted revenues of €2.992 billion, down 8.2%.

In Brazil, Telefónica had 645,000 pay TV customers at the end of March, up 14% year-on-year.
In Spanish-speaking America, the operator had 2.2 million pay TV customers, up 16% year-on-year.

“We are building a more sustainable growth model leveraged on higher customer satisfaction,” said César Alierta, executive chairman of Telefónica.

“The acceleration in the modernisation of our networks is reflected commercially in the evolution of our customer base; contract mobile accesses grew almost double-digit year-on-year underpinned by the acquisition of almost six million smartphone customers, doubling the figure of the first quarter of 2013 while in the fixed business, fibre customer base increased 90% year-on-year. As a result, the value of our customer base has increased due to both the improved ARPU and the higher loyalty, leading to a longer average customer lifetime.”