Cyfrowy Polsat hails converged growth as prepaid business slides

Polish pay TV operator Cyfrowy Polsat saw revenue-generating units and revenues drop in the third quarter, with prepaid customers accounting for the drop in RGUs. However, the company said that the growth in contract customers would provide greater stability, and reported that its SmartDom mutiplay service now had 900,000 customers with 2.7 million RGUs between them.

The operator saw overall revenue drop year-on-year in the third quarter, with growth in wholesale revenue and the sale of equipment failing to offset a decline in retail revenue. Revenues amounted to PLN2.415 billion (€570 million), down from PLN2.42 billion last year.

EBITDA for the quarter was PLN930.4 million, up from PLN910.1 million.

Cyfrowy Polsat had 16.396 million RGUs at the end of the quarter, down from 16.45 million last year. However, contract RGUs rose from 12.231 million to 12.419 million.  Contract pay TV customers rose from 4.345 million to 4.396 million.

Prepaid RGUs fell sharply from 4.219 million in Q3 2014 to 3.977 million, with pay TV customers falling even more sharply, from 122,787 to 60,471.