Cyfrowy Polsat sees RGUs up but overall base declines

Polish pay TV outfit Cyfrowy Polsat saw its revenue-generating unit base increase in the year to March, but its average customer base declined over the same period.

Cyfrowy Polsat saw its overall RGU base increase by 2.2% to 16.579 million over the year to March. Pay TV subscribers grew by 4.1% to 4.984 million, while multiroom TV customers grew by 8.1% to 1.115 million. Mobile customers grew by 3.1% to 6.998 million and internet customers grew by 2.7% to 1.814 million. However, the number of total customers declined by 1.8% over the same period to 5.744 million.

Despite the increase in RGUs – with the average number of services per customers increasing by 5.3% to 2.4 – ARPU also declined over the year, down 0.4% to PLN88.70. Churn was flat over the same period.

Prepaid customers declined by 3.3% to 2.783 million, driven by decreases in mobile prepaid customers and, to a lesser extent, fixed broadband. However, from a very low base prepaid pay TV customers increased by 55.9% to 75,159. The average prepaid TV customer base over the period saw a more sustainable increase of 19.7%.

Polsat overall, which also encompasses free-to-air broadcasting, posted revenue of PLN2.346 billion (€552 million) for the quarter, down from PLN2.387 last year. Operating profit was down to PLN436 million from PLN457 million.