BSkyB adds 6,000 subscribers to its digital service in first quarter

BSKYB has added approximately 6,000 new subscribers to its digital television customer base in Ireland during the first quarter of its financial year — the three-month period until the end of September.

Total new customer numbers across Ireland and Britain grew by 8% or 94,000 people, to 9.536 million. As part of that, take-up of the group’s Sky+HD (high definition) product attracted another 287,000 customers, which was a three-fold increase on the same period of Sky’s last financial year.

Of that last figure, around 17,200 customers can be attributed to the Irish market.

“In what continues to be a tough economic environment, Sky continues to grow in Ireland and more customers are choosing high definition to watch programmes such as Heineken Cup rugby and movies with enhanced picture and sound quality,” said Sky Ireland director Mark Deering.

In BSkyB’s last full financial year until the end of June, the company added a further 50,000 subscribers here, taking its total Irish customer base to over 600,000 homes.

On a group-wide basis, BSkyB reported a pre-tax profit of £180 million (€196m) for its first quarter — up from £129m for the same period last year. Operating profit was up 9% to £198m, earnings per share rose by 15% to 7p and group revenue was up 10% on a year-on-year basis at £1.38 billion.

“Our business has made a good start to our 2010 financial year with another quarter of strong results,” said BSkyB chief executive Jeremy Darroch. “We have increased the number of customers joining Sky. High definition has continued to perform very well and more customers are saving money by choosing Sky.”