SES: HD+ Passes One Million Paying Households

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013
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LUXEMBOURG & MUNICH — SES S.A. (Paris:SESG)(LuxX:SESG) announced today that its German HD platform HD+ now exceeds one million paying households. For the full year of 2012, HD+ more than doubled the number of paying customers, from 404,123 to 944,993. HD PLUS expects a growth rate of 25 percent for paying customers in 2013.

As of December 31, 2012, HD+ reached a total of 2.87 million households that either pay for the technical service or are in the free HD+ test phase. This represents an increase of 570,000 (or 25 percent) households compared to the previous year. The number of households in the free trial period increased to 1.92 million at the end of 2012.

“In less than 40 months, HD+ has developed from a start-up into an important factor in the German television market,” said Wilfried Urner, Managing Director of the HD PLUS affiliate. “HD+ will continue to be a strong driver of HDTV content in Germany. We will continue to develop the HD+ offer with new products like HD+ RePlay, which gives access to the media libraries of commercial broadcasters.”

Launched on November 1, 2009, HD+ enables households in Germany to receive the following 15 free TV channels in HD quality exclusively via the ASTRA satellite system: RTL HD, Sat.1 HD, ProSieben HD, VOX HD, kabel eins HD, RTL II HD, SUPER RTL HD, N24 HD, TELE 5 HD, SPORT1 HD, DMAX HD, Nickelodeon HD, sixx HD, COMEDY CENTRAL HD and DELUXE MUSIC HD. Customers with an HD+ set-top box can receive another 22 HD channels at no extra charge.

HD+ key figures: 2012 vs 2011

                                             31/12/2012  31/12/2011    Change
                                             ----------  ----------  --------
Active HD+ households (1)                     2,871,499   2,301,195  +570,304
Of which HD+ households in free trial (2)     1,926,506   1,897,072   +29,434
Of which paying HD+ households (3)              944,993     404,123  +540,870

1. Households receiving the HD+ channels
2. Households in a 12-months free trial period
3. Households paying the annual service fee of 50 Euros