Canal Plus helps Vivendi boost profit

Vivendi has improved its 2010 outlook after posting a 4% rise in first-half profit.

The French media group saw a net profit of €1.53bn in the first six months of the year, up from €1.47bn a year earlier.

Canal Plus Group, Vivendi’s pay-TV unit, increased revenues by 3.1% to €2.3bn. Over the past 12 months, Canal Plus France’s customer base increased by 356,000 subscribers. In metropolitan France, churn rate among digital subscribers improved to 11.6%, compared to 13% at the end of June 2009. ARPU also rose by €1.90 to €46.30. The company’s efforts to digitise Canal Plus subscribers meant it had approximately just 100,000 analogue subscribers at the end of June 2010.

In Poland, Canal Plus’s EBITA was €486m, a 3% year-on-year increase.

Vivendi’s French telco SFR posted first-half revenues of €6.3bn, up 1.8% year-on-year. It ended June with 4.7 million broadband customers after adding 238,000 customers during the first six months of the year.