Sky New Zealand reports results for 2021 financial year

AUCKLAND — Sky New Zealand has reported a strong result for the 2021 financial year, delivering revenue of $711.2m, EBITDA of $186.4m and NPAT of $47.5m, including several one-offs.

Customers

The Sky Box customer base continues to stabilise, evidenced through further reductions in the rate of churn for Sky Box customers in FY21. These improvements are driven by retaining similar levels of acquisitions whilst improving levels of churn through enhanced customer insights, marketing and retention programmes. Average revenue per user (ARPU) has declined due to the impacts of COVID-19 related discounts, offering discounts following the migration of reseller customers to direct billing relationships and a small drop in average package holdings.

Following the strong levels of streaming customer growth in FY20 through Neon and Sky Sport Now, there was a small decline in FY21 due to the change in focus in RugbyPass, away from a subscription product service to an audience and network business, as well as a drop in Neon subscribers following the churn of some Lightbox customers on bundled services, albeit this was then followed by significant growth over the remainder of the year. Sky Sport Now benefited from the improvement in COVID-19 related sport restrictions in New Zealand and Neon had a strong content line-up.

                                     2021       2020       2019       2018       2017
                                ---------  ---------  ---------  ---------  ---------
Sky Box customers (1)             561,989    585,248    619,073    661,361    705,652
Streaming customers (2)           393,179    404,321    159,767    106,366    110,861
Other customers (3)                     -          -          -          -      8,269
Total customers                   955,168    989,569    778,840    767,727    824,782
Net customer growth - Sky Box         -4%        -5%        -6%        -6%        -5%
Net customer growth - streaming       -3%       153%        50%        -4%        22%
Sky Box acquisition (4)            47,273     41,510     49,952     59,603     79,685
Sky Box churn (4)                (69,287)   (74,643)   (91,841)  (103,394)  (113,226)
Sky Box ARPU ($ monthly) (5)        78.40      82.08      83.46      84.54      85.05
Streaming ARPU ($ monthly) (6)      17.46      19.80          -          -          -

1. Sky Box customer groups comprise residential, commercial (including reseller in prior years), and broadband customers.
2. Streaming customer groups comprises Neon, Lightbox, Sky Sport Now, RugbyPass and retransmission.
3. Other customers include customers from non-trading businesses, IGLOO and Fatso.
4. Sky Box acquisition and churn is for Sky residential customers only, including reseller.
5. Sky Box ARPU is average revenue per user for Sky residential customers only, including reseller customers, calculated as the average for the twelve month period.
6. Streaming ARPU is the blended rate across Neon, Lightbox, Sky Sport Now, RugbyPass, and retransmission.