Vodafone to launch UK TV service early in 2016

Vodafone has said that it plans to launch its long-anticipated TV service in the UK in the fourth quarter of its 2016 financial year, meaning that the service will be available by March next year.

Earlier reports had suggested that Vodafone would launch its TV product in the UK this month.

Vodafone launched its consumer broadband service in the UK commercially in October, with the service available to 22 million homes, or 95% of BT’s fibre footprint. The company reported 70,000 fixed broadband customers in the UK at the end of its half-year reporting period, ahead of the commercial launch.

Vodafone had 9.2 million TV customers globally at the end of September, compared with 12.5 million fixed broadband customers, up half a million on the figure for March.

In Spain, Vodafone reported sold growth for its converged service combining mobile, fixed broadband and TV, which had 800,000 customers at the end of September, and solid growth in its mobile contract base despite what it described as “aggressive cross-selling” of mobile to TV customers by Telefónica. The company had 2.88 million fixed broadband customers in Spain at the end of September.

In Germany the Vodafone Red One package, an integrated bundle combining mobile and high-speed broadband on the Kabel Deutschland network was launched this month. The company had 5.59 million fixed-line customers at the end of September in Germany.

Vodafone reported revenues of £20.27 billion (€28.41 billion) for the six months to September, down 2.3%, and EBITDA of £5.79 billion, down 1.7%.

“We have reached an important turning point for the Group with a return to organic growth in service revenue and EBITDA in the first half of the financial year. Our customers are benefiting from the significant investments we are making in high speed mobile and fixed networks, as evidenced by the huge growth in demand for data and the increased loyalty to Vodafone services,” said Vincent Colao, CEO.

“We are achieving 4G leadership in Europe, organic revenue growth in fixed and enterprise and sustained commercial momentum in emerging markets, all of which is consistent with our long- term strategy and which is being accelerated through our Project Spring investments. We also remain keenly focused on increasing efficiency and improving margins. We expect progress to continue in the second half of the year.”