BSkyB tops forecasts, posts 13.7% hike in H1 profit

BSkyB tops forecasts, posts 13.7% hike in H1 profit

	Published : Wed, 01 Feb 2006 15:35 By : James Rowe Print this Story

DUBLIN: British satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc. topped forecasts with a 13.7 per cent rise in first-half profit Wednesday and posted its biggest quarterly rise in new customers in three years.

Profit before tax rose to 390 million pounds during the half-year ended December 2005, against market expectations of 374.2 million pounds, while revenues grew 9 per cent to 2.14 billion pounds.

The company added 215,000 new subscribers during the last three months of the half year, taking its subscriber base to 8.1 million, despite competition from cable companies and the Freeview platform. Analysts had expected the company to add 177,000 subscribers.

BSkyB's chief executive James Murdoch said the company felt very confident about its competitive positioning. "Results like these reinforce our confidence that we will achieve our goal of 10 million customers by 2010."

The percentage of customers who left the service reduced to 10.6 per cent from 11.7 per cent in the previous quarter.

NewsCorp-owned BSkyB said its full growth in 2006 calendar will be towards the second half when it will have introduced products like high definition (HD) television. Its residential broadband service will also go on stream then, facilitated by its acquisition of Easynet in 2005. It will he having a hybrid satellite-internet platform.

The subscriber base for the Sky+, its digital video recording (DVR) service, increased by 25 per cent in the quarter, totalling 1.3 million. This constitutes nearly 16 per cent of the entire subscriber base.

Murdoch said every 30 seconds in the last quarter the company added a Sky customer. "Our strategy is very clear. We are trying to bring whole solutions to our customers to deal with their entertainment needs."

Some 100,000 subscribers will be added in the six months to June 30, compared with 178,000 in the same period last year, the company said.

Murdoch also said BSkyB has no immediate plans to enter the mobile phone service segment, though at a later date it may consider expanding its phone TV service in collaboration with Vodafone Group Plc.

The company's shares, which saw the second-largest percentage decline in the FTSE 100 in 2005, rose 1.8 per cent to 494-1/2 pence. It is paying interim dividend of 5.5 pence, an increase of 38 per cent.