UK's TalkTalk adds 115,000 TV customers in 4Q 2014

Continued strong growth in take-up of TV (+115,000) and acquisition of blinkbox

TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC has released its Q3 FY15 trading update for the 9 months to 31st December 2014.

We added 115,000 net new TV customers taking our total base of TV customers to 1.3m. Pay content boost penetration and TVOD movie volumes remained strong during the quarter as we benefited from a second year of growing content propositions and a successful Christmas. At the end of the quarter we reached agreement with Netflix to launch to TalkTalk customers on YouView. The agreement will allow us to share in the revenues generated, further demonstrating the appeal of the TalkTalk platform to a growing number of content providers.

KPIs (millions)

                    FY13                        FY14                 FY15
     -------------------  --------------------------  -------------------
        Q2     Q3     Q4     Q1     Q2     Q3     Q4     Q1     Q2     Q3
     -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
TV       -  0.080  0.230  0.390  0.557  0.732  0.917  1.102  1.217  1.332

Following the end of the quarter we acquired blinkbox, one of the leading on-demand providers of pay content in the UK. blinkbox’s established technical expertise in multi-platform, multi-device content delivery and incremental content relationships are highly complementary to our existing TV strategy. blinkbox will help accelerate the development of our platform by delivering a number of key initiatives significantly faster. We have begun the integration of blinkbox with our existing TV business with immediate actions under way to integrate our teams, accelerate product development, and reduce costs in a number of areas. While we will absorb modest operating losses (£3m-£5m) during the current quarter, we expect a positive contribution to our TV business in FY16.