Sky on Wednesday reported strong full-year revenue and earnings growth off the back of impressive customer additions.
In the 12 months to 30 June, the U.K.-based triple-play provider generated revenue of £11.3 billion, up 5% on last year. Pretax profit increased 6% to £1.2 billion.
The company’s customer base swelled to 21 million from 20.2 million during the course of the year.
The increase was driven by the U.K. and Ireland, which added 455,000 new customers to reach 12 million, and Germany and Austria, which added 372,000 to reach 4.3 million. In Italy, Sky’s subscriber base edged up to 4.73 million from 4.70 million.
In the U.K., Sky has ramped up the competition with BT in the broadband market. In the three months to 30 June, Sky added 96,000 broadband customers in the U.K. and Ireland, leaving it with 5.63 million in total.
"The past 12 months have been an outstanding period of growth for Sky. We’ve successfully completed a deal that has transformed the size and scale of opportunity for the business whilst delivering an excellent financial and operational performance as more customers chose Sky and took more o f our products," said Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch, in a statement.
Indeed, it has been almost exactly one year since Sky agreed to take over Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. It has spent the last 12 months working to establish a consistent brand and service offering across its entire European footprint.
By 2017, Sky aims to offer a single set-top-box across the group and to have aligned its over-the-top (OTT) services. The company said it is on track to generate £200 million of synergies by the end of fiscal 2017.
"The investments we have made have given us a strong platform on which to build and we have a clear set of plans to deliver long-term growth and returns for our shareholders," said Darroch.
