Videotron illico Digital TV subscribers stable at 1.5 million in 2Q 2013

Thursday, August 8th, 2013
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MONTREAL, Québec — Quebecor Inc. (“Quebecor” or the “Corporation”) today reported its consolidated financial results for the second quarter of 2013.

Cable television

The combined customer base for all of Vidéotron’s cable television services decreased by 16,800 (-0.9%) in the second quarter of 2013 (compared with a decrease of 16,100 in the same quarter of 2012) and decreased by 5,500 (-0.3%) during the 12-month period ended June 30, 2013. Because many people in Québec move during the second quarter, negative variances are not unusual. At the end of the second quarter of 2013, Videotron had 1,832,400 subscribers to its cable television services.

The household and business penetration rate (number of subscribers as a proportion of the total 2,723,800 homes and businesses passed by Videotron’s network as of the end of June 2013, up from 2,681,100 one year earlier) was 67.3% versus 68.6% a year earlier.

  • As of June 30, 2013, the number of subscribers to illico Digital TV stood at 1,502,000, a quarterly increase of 1,700 or 0.1% (compared with a 7,500-subscriber increase in the second quarter of 2012) and a 12-month increase of 77,000 (5.4%). As of June 30, 2013, illico Digital TV had a household and business penetration rate of 55.1% versus 53.1% a year earlier.
  • The customer base for analog cable television services decreased by 18,500 (-5.3%) in the second quarter of 2013 (compared with a decrease of 23,600 customers in the same quarter of 2012) and by 82,500 (-20.0%) over a 12-month period, largely as a result of customer migration to illico Digital TV.

Cable television customers (in thousands)

                          2013                                2012              2011
              ----------------  ----------------------------------  ----------------
                 June     Mar.     Dec.    Sept.     June     Mar.     Dec.    Sept.
              -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------
Analogue        330.4    348.9    370.4    395.1    412.9    436.5    460.7    496.1
Digital       1,502.0  1,500.3  1,484.6  1,457.8  1,425.0  1,417.5  1,400.8  1,348.1

During the second quarter of 2013, Videotron introduced the multiroom PVR, a new functionality that lets subscribers to illico TV new generation play back their favourite shows on any television set in the home.

Digital Set-Top Boxes (‘000)

            2013                       2012
----------------  -------------------------
   June     Mar.     Dec.    Sept.     June
-------  -------  -------  -------  -------
2,413.2  2,395.9  2,345.2  2,268.2  2,196.6