NOS sees TV growth slow but hails success with convergence

Portuguese cable and pay TV operator NOS has seen solid take up of its converged fixed-mobile packages, which it said was driven by pay TV. However, growth in the operator’s TV base has slowed significantly in 2017.

Close to half of the company’s customer base now take a convergent fixed-mobile offering. However, NOS grew its TV base year-on-year by only 1% to 1.617 million customers, adding only 800 customers in the fourth quarter. NOS attributed the slowdown to overall market conditions as well as remedies imposed by the regulator in relatin to procedures for reporting price increases.

NOS added 4,400 fixed-line TV customers in the fourth quarter, but lost 3,500 DTH customers. The fixed-line TV base stood at 1.292 million at the end of the year, while the DTH base stood at 324,400.

Coverage of NOS’s fibre network grew by 8.5% to 4.084 million homes. Total RGUs numbered 9.412 million, up 3.7%.

The company’s broadband base grew by 5.4% to1.333 million.

The number of convergent revenue-generating units increased by 7.8% to 3.651 million, while ARPU grew by 2.4% to €43.80.

NOS’s operating reveneus grew by 3.1% for the full year to €1.562 billion, while EBITDA grew by 4.3% to €581 million.