Sky+ takeup hits 3 million

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Wednesday February 06 2008. It was last updated at 08:31 on February 06 2008.
Satellite group BSkyB set another record for customer growth for personal video recorder service Sky+ in the three months to the end of December, with takeup pushing through the 3 million barrier.
The company said today 3,131,000 households in the UK and Ireland had the service at the end of September, after unprecedented growth of 434,000.
This was more than 100,000 up on the earlier record of 327,000, set in the previous quarter.
Sky now has a total of 8,832,000 pay-TV customers, with 167,000 net additions made in October, November and December, keeping it on track to hit 10 million by 2010.
The pre-Christmas period is always Sky's best performing quarter, although takeup was the lowest recorded since Sky became a digital-only service in 2001, down from 183,000 in the same period in 2006.
BSkyB's chief executive, Jeremy Darroch, who took over from James Murdoch in December, said Sky was achieving its goal of drawing more customers to its range of products - including high-definition TV, broadband and telephony.
Sky Broadband customer numbers were up 260,000 or 28%, to reach 1,199,000 at the end of the December, just 18 months after the service was launched.
The company aims to have 3 million broadband customers, or 30% of its subscriber base, by 2010. Darroch said the company was "moving beyond the peak" of its £400m investment in the venture.
Sky said it added 64,000 high-definition subscribers, taking its tally to 422,000 at the end of September. Its Sky Talk telephone business grew by a record 236,000 to 915,000.
Churn - a measure of how many customers left the service - fell to 10%, while Arpu - average revenue per user - hit a record £421.
Sky also reported that revenues over the six months to the end of December were up 11% to £2.458bn.
The company made a loss of £112m, factoring in a £343m impairment resulting from the fall in the value of its 17.9% stake in ITV. Its operating profit for the period was £307m.
Darroch said today that the group was considering its options following last week's government decision that Sky should sell down its stake to below 7.5% on competition grounds.
It has another three weeks to decide whether to appeal against the ruling, which followed the advice of the Competition Commission.