Belgacom TV adds 82k subs in H109

Belgian telco Belgacom added 82,000 subscribers to its IPTV service 'Belgacom TV' in the first half of this year to reach a total of 589,000 customers by last June, including 75,000 'second-stream' users.

Revenues for the service meanwhile reached €59mn for the first half of this year, up 53.3% from the same period of last year. Average revenue per user for Belgacom TV reached €19.80 by June 2009, compared to €19.50 one year previously, with the telco reporting that TV ARPUs were positively affected by a lower impact from promotions in the first half of this year.

Belgacom reports that it invested a total of €44mn in its TV service in the first half of this year, including in the platform, set-top boxes and content. The company has also invested €25mn in the further deployment of its Broadway project (expanding its VDSL and fibre-to-the-cabinet networks), which has enlarged its TV footprint to cover 87% of Belgium, as well as "easily" allowing customers to watch two HDTV channels and surf the Internet at the same time.

Revenues across all operations reached €2.996bn for the first six months of this year, up 1.4% year-on-year, while net income reached €400mn, down from €471mn one year previously.