Belgacom TV adds 89,000 subscriptions in 4Q09

The Board of Directors of the Belgacom Group (Brussels: BELG) has approved its annual results for 2009.

Consumer Business Unit

In 2009, Belgacom managed to grow its TV customer base by 246,000 new TV subscribers, compared to 201,000 in 2008. In fourth quarter 2009 Belgacom TV performed particularly well, and reached a new all-time high with no fewer than 89,000 new subscriptions sold. This strong result was driven by the company-wide FAIR program, and was supported by a positive seasonality effect.

FAIR, launched mid-2009, addresses the cable competition through several initiatives, including the launch of the “Free TV” Pack. Scarlet is also contributing to the TV customer growth since the launch of Scarlet One in September 2009. By end 2009, CBU counted 752,000 TV customers of which 100,000 are second stream users.

Year-over-year, the TV ARPU per household increased by 5.4% (+ EUR 1.1) to EUR 20.4 due to a lower impact of promotions. Especially the fourth quarter of 2009 showed a strong performance with an ARPU of EUR 21.3 driven by higher usage of on-demand services, a higher number of activations and customers switching to the comfort offer including high-definition.

CBU operating result

                                     Q108  Q208  Q308  Q408 | Q109  Q209  Q309  Q409
                                     ----  ----  ----  ----   ----  ----  ----  ----
TV (thousands)                        349   391   443   506 |  555   589   663   752
  TV - households                     313   350   389   441 |  486   513   575   652
   Of which TV-second stream users     37    42    54    65 |   70    75    88   100

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