France Télécom pay TV subscribers up 74% Y-o-Y at end-2Q09

Thursday, July 30th, 2009
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PARIS — France Telecom (Paris & NYSE: FTE) has released its second quarter 2009 results.

Home Communication Services

Growth was strong in ADSL broadband services, with 13.4 million customers at 30 June 2009, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. The number of ADSL multiservices customers continued to grow rapidly, in particular in digital TV (IPTV and satellite television), with 2.7 million customers at 30 June 2009 and year-on-year growth of 74%.

HCS France

Consumer ADSL broadband subscribers totalled 8.639 million at 30 June 2009, providing year-on-year growth of 10.2% with 799,000 additional subscribers in twelve months. ADSL multiservices continued to be buoyant. At 30 June 2009 there were:

  • 6.991 million Livebox rentals, an increase of 18% in one year, with Liveboxes representing 81% of all ADSL subscribers at 30 June 2009, up from 75% a year earlier;
  • 6.339 million Voice over IP customers, an increase of 27% in one year, with Voice over IP representing 73% of ADSL subscribers and 91% of Livebox rentals at 30 June 2009; and
  • 2.339 million digital TV customers (satellite and ADSL television), a 68% increase from a year ago. At 30 June 2009, there were 416,000 subscribers to Orange satellite TV, launched on 3 July 2008.

Content services continued to experience rapid growth:

  • Video on Demand (VOD) services nearly quadrupled, with 17.4 million downloads in the first half of 2009 against 4.6 million in the first half of 2008.
  • There were 393,000 subscribers to the Orange sport channels launched on 9 August 2008 and the Orange cinema series launched on 13 November 2008, compared with 130,000 subscribers at 31 December 2008.

HCS Poland

Revenues from Home Communication Services totalled 1.138 million euros, down 2.5% on a comparable basis. Excluding the impact of the rate decrease for call terminations, estimated at -28 million euros, revenues were virtually stable in the first half of 2009 (-0.1%).

The number of traditional telephone lines (7.486 million lines at 30 June 2009) was down 10.9% year-on-year due to the migration to mobile services. Thus revenues from traditional telephone communications were affected by the 15.3% downturn in traffic and the impact of rate cuts for fixed-to-mobile communications (-33%). These unfavourable trends were offset by:

  • steady growth in ADSL broadband offers, with revenues up 8.7% in the first half of 2009. The number of ADSL broadband subscribers rose to 2.267 million at 30 June 2009, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%. In addition, ADSL ARPU grew as a result of customer migration to higher speed services and growth in add-on services. As a result, the number of digital TV subscribers (satellite and ADSL television) more than quadrupled in one year to 239,000 customers at 30 June 2009;
  • 39.3% growth in Operator services driven by an increase in wholesale services (telephone lines and ADSL) and increasing revenues from domestic and international call transit services.

HCS Spain

Revenues from Home Communication Services were 342 million euros in the first half of 2009, down 1.6% on a comparable basis (-1.5% on an historical basis), linked to the downturn in business services and portal revenues. However, ADSL broadband revenues remained stable. The 4.8% drop in the customer base in one year (1.135 million customers at 30 June 2009) was offset by:

  • the growing share of ADSL subscriptions sold unbundled from the telephone line, which continued to rise steadily, reaching 78.9% of total ADSL subscriptions at 30 June 2009, compared with 71.1% a year earlier, a year-on-year gain of 7.8 points;
  • 93% growth in the number of Voice over IP services customers in one year (385,000 customers at 30 June 2009), while ADSL television services (IPTV) remained stable (92,000 at 30 June 2009).

France Télécom operational KPIs:

(in thousands)                    1Q07   2Q07   3Q07   4Q07   1Q08   2Q08   3Q08   4Q08   1Q09   2Q09
                                 -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
France
  IPTV and satellite customers     745    837    975  1,149  1,282  1,389  1,603  1,909  2,166  2,339
  Pay TV subscriptions                                  543    644    638    759    898  1,138  1,188
Spain
  IPTV customers                    14     16     18     54     75     92     86     87     99     92
Poland
  IPTV and satellite customers       9     19     23     40     49     54     57    113    198    239
Total
  IPTV and satellite customers     768    872  1,017  1,243  1,407  1,535  1,746  2,109  2,463  2,670

More: Earnings Release