Wireless

BSkyB is UK's fastest growing broadband provider

Jul 15, 2007 8:00pm

(TelecomWeb News Break via NewsEdge) In less than a year, UK direct-to-home satellite-TV giant British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) has become Britain's fastest-growing broadband provider, with broadband now driving the company's overall growth.

During the company's fourth fiscal quarter ended June 30, BSkyB added a net of 259,000 new broadband subscribers, bringing its total broadband subscriber base to 716,000. It also added 171,000 telephony customers, bringing that total subscriber base to 526,000.

In contrast, on the television side, it reported a far lower growth rate and netted only 90,000 new subscribers - after taking into account a hefty churn rate of 12.1%, which was down a bit from 13.7% in the first three months.

BSkyB now has some 8.6 million subscribers to its core DTH service.

"Our transformation continues to gather pace. Today, we are adding new customers at the fastest rate since analog switch-off. We are adding more broadband customers than any other provider, and we are the only major residential telephony provider growing its customer base," said BSkyB chairman and CEO James Murdoch.

Murdoch also chairs News Corp, which owns 39.1% of BSkyB.

He said the company, which jumped into telephony and broadband last year to have a triple-play bundle to fend off competitors such as BT and Virgin Media, was on track to reach its target of 3 million broadband subscribers and 10 million TV subscribers by 2010.