By Mark Baber
July 29 – With BT shortly launching it new sports channels showing Premier League football, Sky, which has managed to see off previous major rivals, has been talking up the benefits of competition and has released new figures showing increased revenues and profits.
Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch announced that “this is a business that loves competition”, as he revealed Sky’s figures the year to the end of June which show pre-tax profits were £1.26billion for the year, a 5.7% increase, revenues up 7% to £7.2 billion and customer numbers increasing by 552,000 to 14.8 million.
Sky subscribers currently pay an average of £577 a year for services, up £29 from a year ago with the number of people connecting their Sky+ HD box to the internet jumped by 1.7 million to 2.7 million.
BSkyB now has 10.42 million TV subscribers and 4.9 million broadband customers, including 119,000 new broadband customers from the last quarter and 400,000 from the acquisition of O2’s customer base.
The company has also announced a £500 million share buyback and an 18 per cent increase in the dividend.
Darroch said: “We are delighted with the results today. The economy is a challenge and it is providing head-winds for all consumer businesses. Against that backdrop we have a strong set of plans that will extend our leadership in core areas.”
Sky also announced 50,000 people had so far signed up for its new £9.99 Now TV box which connects TVs to the internet and gives contract-free access to BBC iPlayer, Demand 5 and Sky News and allows people to pay to watch Sky Sports and Sky Movies. The device Now TV box is a direct competitor to the YouView box, a joint venture between BT, TalkTalk, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Arqiva which also offers on-demand TV for free and marks the first time Sky has allowed access to Premier League football without a TV subscription.
Meanwhile BT said Friday over 500,000 people have signed up to its new sport channels ahead of their launch and 95,000 retail broadband customers had joined during the quarter to the end of June, giving it 6.8 million customers.
The majority of Premier League fans who watch live games once a week or more subscribe to Sky satellite television but this may change as the battle between BT and Sky unfolds.
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