Canal+ converts 240,000 to digital in 1st half 2009

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
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Canal+ Group logo

PARIS — Vivendi (Paris: VIV) has released results for the first half of 2009.

Canal+ Group

Canal+ Group revenues at the end of June 2009 were €2,258 million, a 1.9% increase at constant currency and 0.2% in actual currency.

Over the past twelve months, Canal+ France’s net subscription growth continued to be impacted by the portfolio change of scope carried out in 2008. Excluding this adjustment, net portfolio growth was +94,000 subscriptions year-on-year, which represented an improvement compared with first quarter (+75,000 year-on-year at March 31, 2009). This trend is expected to continue to the end of the year, despite the continued slowdown in the economy. Subscriber growth is notably driven by strong Canal+ and CanalSat performances in territories operated by Canal Overseas (French overseas territories and Africa, including North Africa countries). The June announcement of the pay-TV launch operations in Vietnam is expected to strengthen Canal+ Group’s growth potential outside France.

In addition, migration of analog subscribers was accelerated over the past six months with nearly 240,000 upgrades to digital since January 2009, ahead of targets.

Regarding the group’s other operations, Canal+ in Poland continues to post strong net additions (more than 290,000 extra subscribers year-on-year).

SFR (Neuf Cegetel)

  • Fast growing base of 1.7m customers having access to TV and VoD services
  • ~400k subscribers to pay-TV bouquets and channels

On February 26, 2009, Neuf Cegetel and SFR entered into a merger agreement pursuant to which Neuf Cegetel agreed to merge with and into SFR. This merger was completed on March 30, 2009.

More: Earnings Release