75,000 Telstra TV boxes in the market

MELBOURNE, Australia — Telstra Corporation has released financial results for the half-year ended 31 December 2015.

In Media In the Home the company continued its strategy to bundle with core fixed products, including the launch of Telstra TV in October. This is now the first streaming device to include access to all three Australian commercial streaming services – Stan, Presto and Netflix, plus catch-up applications for all the free to air channels and movie rentals through BigPond Movies.

Media In the Home includes Foxtel from Telstra, T-Box device sales, Foxtel on T-Box, BigPond Movies, Presto, and relationships with all free to air providers.

Foxtel from Telstra revenue grew by 8.7% to $350m and subscribers grew 17.9% to 660,000. This growth was due to the increased take up of the Telstra entertainer bundles.

The shift in focus towards Foxtel from Telstra in our bundle offers has impacted IPTV revenues, which were down 19 per cent, reflecting the transition from T-Box sales to Telstra TV sales. Excluding revenue from T-Box sales and Foxtel on T-Box, IPTV revenues grew 12.3 per cent due to net IPTV subscriber growth. IPTV subscriber growth of 17.9 per cent included 92,000 new SVOD subscribers across T-Box and Telstra TV. SVOD growth was partially offset by a decline in Foxtel on T-Box subscribers, down from 190,000 subscribers in the first half of FY15 to 132,000 in this half.

As of 31 December Telstra had 43,000 Telstra TVs in the market. The Telstra TV represents an opportunity to provide a media experience for customers who aren’t traditional Pay TV customers, but also capitalises on the rapidly changing media landscape.

In an interview with the Financial Review, Telstra chief executive Andy Penn said that the number of Telstra TVs in the market is now 75,000.

Media on the Go revenue decreased by 17.1 per cent due to declining legacy mobile download services. This reflects a shift in strategy from direct media revenues towards differentiation and data usage across Telstra’s core products. We achieved 41 per cent revenue growth from our AFL and NRL subscribers. The decline in movie downloads reflects a transition from T-Box to the Telstra TV platform.

                                   1H15  1H16  Growth
                                   ----  ----  ------
Foxtel from Telstra subscribers    560k  660k   17.9%
IPTV subscribers                   190k  224k   17.9%
Telstra TVs in market                 -   43k     n/m
Movie downloads                    2.7m  2.2m  -17.6%