Sky results for the nine months to 31 March 2018
Financial results
- 5% increase in like-for-like revenue to £10.1 billion
- 14% increase in Established Business EBITDA to £1.8 billion; 10% increase in EBITDA to £1.7 billion
- Adjusted operating costs held flat in absolute terms for a third successive year
- Statutory operating profit of £857 million, up 22%
Consistent execution against clear strategy
- Extended Premier League rights in UK to 2022 with more games and at a lower cost
- European partnership agreed with Netflix to bundle full service into brand new Sky TV pack
- Sky Q penetration reached 2.5 million homes across UK, Ireland and Italy
- Commenced next stage in development of Europes best TV service with Spotify to launch on Sky Q next week
- Significant upgrade started to all services in Germany & Austria and Sky Q rolling out on 2nd May
- Agreed landmark deals in Italy with Mediaset to launch a Sky Pay-TV service over DTT, and with Open Fiber to launch a triple-play service
- Added 480,000 new customers in the last year to 22.9 million; Q3 growth of 38,000
Jeremy Darroch, Group Chief Executive, commented:
Its been a good quarter for Sky. Weve delivered excellent financial results, with like-for-like revenues up 5% and Established EBITDA up 14%. Against the back drop of a challenging consumer environment, this performance reflects the continual improvement in our broad set of products and services and our focus on providing great value every single day something recognised by customers now taking over 62 million subscription products from us and our services reaching over 120 million people across Europe.
Todays results not only demonstrate continued strong execution but also extend our position as Europes leading direct-to-consumer media business. Were giving more customers the best viewing experience with the further development and roll out of Sky Q, now in millions of homes and launching in Germany & Austria in two weeks time as part of the ongoing transformation of our business in these markets. Customers can look forward to an even broader choice of entertainment through our pioneering new partnerships with Netflix and Spotify, together with our new Premier League deal which secures the UK rights until 2022. Were continuing to expand the growth opportunity of the business by concluding landmark agreements in Italy with Mediaset to launch a Sky Pay-TV service over DTT for the first time, and with Open Fiber to access their next generation fibre-to-the-home broadband network and launch our own triple-play service in this market.
Looking ahead, we have the right strategy and abilities in place to provide customers with the best content, products and service. Whilst we expect the consumer environment to remain challenging, the business is in good shape and we remain on track for the full year.
UK & Ireland
We had a strong quarter in the UK & Ireland making significant progress on our future growth plans, including the successful renewal of our Premier League rights from 2019 to 2022 at 16% less cost per
game, and the conclusion of new partnerships with both Netflix and Spotify as part of the next wave of development to make Sky Q even better. Simultaneously, we have continued to strongly grow customers, products, revenues and profits.
As at 31 March, we had 13 million customers, adding 70,000 new customers this quarter which is 75% higher than the prior year. This reflects healthy demand for our products and services and continued strong progress in reducing churn, falling for the fifth consecutive quarter as our loyalty initiatives, which launched just over a year ago, continue to take effect.
UK & Ireland revenues increased by 4% to £6,668 million driven by customer growth of 285,000 over the last year; good growth in products, particularly Sky Mobile and Sky Q multiscreen; the benefit of
our March 2017 home communications price change, and strong growth in content revenues reflecting our successful investments in original programming. We estimate that the UK advertising market was up around 1%, with Easter falling into this quarter compared to Q4 in the prior year.
Against that backdrop, our own business continued to outperform the market, with our advertising revenues up 3% year to date driven by continued good growth in advanced advertising.
This strong revenue performance, taken together with continued excellent progress on operating efficiency, delivered UK EBITDA growth of 14% to £1,454 million and 10% when including our
investment in Sky Mobile and our new Sky TV service in Spain.
Other highlights from the quarter include:
- Next stage of Sky Q innovation rolling out including: a major upgrade to the user-interface designed to bring the content customers love to the top of their screens; a dedicated kids mode giving parents peace of mind over what their children can watch; and new voice controls which will allow customers to open apps and receive recommendations.
- Strong performance from Sky original programmes: Britannia was our second biggest series launch, reaching 1.9 million viewers in its first week, and Save Me became our most rapidly consumed box-set release.
- Sky Mobile scaling well with 437,000 customers, adding 102,000 new customers in Q3.
- 84% of customer homes connected, up from 81%, driving an 18% increase in streams and on demand downloads.
- Received lowest level of customer complaints in Ofcoms quarterly report across each of TV, broadband and telephony, placing us top for customer service for the 8th consecutive quarter.
Pdf of results and press release available here;
https://assets.contentstack.io/v3/as...93c7f/download
https://www.skygroup.sky/corporate/media-centre