Belgacom TV adds 75,000 customers in 3Q09

Friday, October 30th, 2009
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All-time high Belgacom TV net adds in Q3, +75,000

The Belgacom Group (Brussels: BELG) reports over the first nine months 2009 a solid Group revenue of EUR 4,472 million, i.e. growing 1% year-over-year.

Consumer Business Unit (CBU) – Belgacom TV

Over the period July to September 2009, the Belgacom TV customer base grew by 75,000 customers compared to 52,000 for the same period last year. The number of net adds in the third quarter 2009 was
positively influenced by the launch of “FAIR”, a company-wide program to address cable competition. One of the initiatives taken was the launch of a new multi-play pack that was commercialized as “Free TV”,
referring to the monthly saving customers realize by signing up for this offer. Since its launch in September 2009, Scarlet One is contributing to the TV-customer growth as well.

By end of September 2009, the total Belgacom TV customer base amounted to 663,000, including 88,000 second stream users. This means that in one year time, Belgacom’s TV customer base grew by 220,000 customers. The continued customer growth is the main driver of the Belgacom TV revenue growth. Compared to September 2008, the revenue grew by 51.2% to EUR 94 million and now contributes for 5% to the total CBU revenue.

The TV ARPU per household end of September 2009 was EUR 20.1 or an increase of 1.8% compared to a year ago, driven by a lower impact of promotions. The third quarter ARPU of EUR 20.6 significantly improved compared to the previous quarter as a result of increased sales of set-top boxes and slightly higher usage of on-demand services.

CBU operating result:

                                     Q108  Q208  Q308  Q408 | Q109  Q209  Q309
                                     ----  ----  ----  ----   ----  ----  ----
TV (thousands)                        349   391   443   506 |  555   589   663
  TV - households                     313   350   389   441 |  486   513   575
   Of which TV-second stream users     37    42    54    65 |   70    75    88

Belgacom TV, having a total footprint of 87% of Belgian households, is also supported by the VDSL2-technology, allowing customers to watch TV in high-definition (HD). End September, as many as 66% of Belgian households could access HD-services.

More: Earnings Release