Cabovisão increases subs base

Portuguese MSO Cabovisão added 26,613 new customers during the first quarter of the 2010 fiscal year, ended November 30, 2009 compared to a net loss of 12,749 for the same period of the previous year.

Cabovisão, owned by Canadian company Cogeco, saw the number of basic cable customers decrease by 562 quarter-on-quarter compared to a decrease of 8,035 in the comparable period of the prior year. The number of digital TV customers grew by 16,114 during the quarter, compared to 5,397 customers in the first quarter of the prior year.

The operator had 148,823 high speed broadband subs at the end of November after adding 5,209 in the quarter. Telephony customers increased by 5,852 compared to a loss of 4,902 a year earlier. 

First-quarter revenue amounted to €33.7m, a decrease of €6.5m, or 16.1% compared to the same period of the prior year. Cogeco said this was due to reduced basic cable customers and the impact of retention strategies implemented in the second half of 2009.

“In our European operations, the first quarter results evidence that our customer base has begun to stabilise as a result of the customer retention and acquisition plans implemented in response to the difficult competitive environment experienced in the prior year,” said Louis Audet, president and CEO of Cogeco.