Digitaltveurope.com

Telefónica saw its pay TV base in Latin America grow 7% last year, despite declines in Europe and an overall profit slump across the group.

In Latin America, pay TV access climbed 7% year-on-year in 2012 to 2.4 million customers. This included 13% growth in Peru to 902,000 customers, 12% growth in Columbia to 285,000 and 8% growth in Chile to 424,000.
However, in Europe, pay TV access fell by 14% year-on-year to 0.9 million customers in 2012. In Spain pay TV access stood at 711,000 at the end of the year. In the Czech Republic the figure was 141,000 – up 4%.

Overall, Telefónica Europe’s total customer base for all services – including mobile and broadband – fell 2% year-on-year to 103.2 million by the end of 2012, impacted by 2 million mobile disconnections in Spain in the first quarter of 2012.

Across the entire company, net profit fell 27.3% at the end of last year to €3.92bn after the firm made write-offs totalling €2.54 million.

Telefonica attributed these “extraordinary impacts” to adjustments to the value of the stakes in Telecom Italia and Telefónica Ireland, and the effect of the devaluation of the Venezuelan Bolivar.

Revenues stood at €62.4 billion at the end of December, down 0.8% year-on-year.