Strong demand for high definition services enabled pay-TV firm BSkyB to lure a better-than-expected 94,000 net new customers in the first quarter of the year and extract more money from each user.
BSkyB, which shows premium sports, news and movies, took its total customer base to 9.54 million households, at the top end of analyst forecasts, as more Britons chose to stay at home during the economic downturn.
The company did not break out any figures for the Irish market but it is understood to be trading well and now has about 600,000 subscribers in the Republic.
The group, which has James Murdoch as its chairman, also managed to extract more money from its customers, with the average revenue generated by users increasing by £39 year-on-year to £469.
The percentage of people who dropped their service was 11.3 per cent, slightly above analyst forecasts of 11 per cent, but generally in line for the time of year when BSkyB increases prices.
But those who joined Sky for the first time, or signed up for new products, were often drawn to the HD offering. It added 287,000 new HD customers, a threefold increase on the previous year, to reach 1.6 million households and ahead of forecasts of 240,000 HD additions.
The group added 100,000 broadband customers in the three months to the end of September, slightly below analyst forecasts of 110,000, and below the 164,000 added in the same period last year.
"Our business has made a good start to our 2010 financial year with another quarter of strong results," chief executive Jeremy Darroch said in a statement.
"In what continues to be a tough economic environment, we have increased the number of customers joining Sky," he added.
The group posted a 9 per cent rise in adjusted operating profit to £198 million pounds, while revenues rose 10 per cent to £1.38 billion.
Reuters