Telia’s TV and media business, alongside service revenue in Sweden and the Baltic states helped boost the company’s fourth quarter performance, with overall service revenue rising by 3%.
CEO Alison Kirkby said that TV and media had continued to grow in the quarter, with access to C More pay TV content now 14% higher than a year ago.
Service revenues grew by 11% across both ad-funded and pay TV businesses, with ad revenues described as strong in both linear and digital platforms across Sweden and Finland.
Digital advertising in Sweden was up by 28%, driven by streaming service TV4 Play.
While service revenue grew, investment in premium sports rights meant that growth in the C More pay TV customer base failed to translate into EBITDA growth for the TV and media business overall.
TV ARPU grew by 8% in the quarter however.
The TV and media business, comprising the former Bonnier Broadcasting free and pay TV businesses, had 865,000 subscribers at the end of Q4, up from 789,000 a year earlier.
Overall TV subscription for the group, including each country’s fixed-line TV numbers, amounted to 3.377 million, up from 3.235 million.
Full year TV and media unit service revenues were SEK8.647 billion (€820 million), up from SEK7.429 billion.
TV and media EBITDA was SEK878 million, up from SEK758 million.
