Sky Broadband Preps UK Launch of New MVNO Sky Mobile Service

Sky has today published their latest quarterly trading update, which is very vague and sadly includes no new information on the size of their Sky Broadband base. On the upside we finally get a progress update on the imminent launch of their new O2 (MVNO) based Sky Mobile service.

Generally the third quarter appears to have been a subdued one for Sky, except for the seemingly endless sparring match with Ofcom and BT over the future of Openreach. Otherwise Sky launched a new no-contract NOW TV, broadband and phone “Combo” bundle (here), claimed to have “almost completed” the roll-out of IPv6 (here) and replaced their ‘up to’ 76Mbps Fibre Pro (FTTC) package with a cheaper Fibre Max option (here).

The only major negative for the quarter was when they ended up being affected by Yahoo!’s massive personal data breach, which occurred because Sky’s email platform is based on the same company’s technology and database (here).

However after a year of silence Sky has finally started talking about their forthcoming Sky Mobile product, which is expected to launch towards the end of 2016 and could be used to fuel a new range of triple or quad-play bundles with broadband, phone and / or TV services.

Sky’s update states that the upcoming launch of Sky Mobile has been a “key focus during the period” and they’ve been busy completing the “final readiness milestones,” such as “successfully completing our first live calls, SMS and data sessions, provisioning our own SIMs, and concluding international roaming agreements.”

Jeremy Darroch, Sky’s Group CEO, said:

“Looking ahead, the forthcoming launch of our mobile proposition will add another major product offering to our UK line up and will give our customers the opportunity to take even more from a brand known for great customer service and quality products.”

Perhaps one of the reasons why Sky might not have been keen to publish more detail on their subscriber figures is because they weren’t very good and thus needed to be swept under the carpet. The results announcement noted that they added a total of just 35,000 new customers in the UK & Ireland during the quarter to 30th September, which is across all of TV, broadband and phone.

By comparison Sky added about +24,000 new broadband customers for the UK & Ireland in the previous quarter ALONE and before that they added +46,000, which suggests a downward trend. Mind you a lot of other ISPs have also seen a slowdown, although the third calendar quarter is usually a better one.

On the financial front Sky UK and Ireland saw quarterly revenue of £2,104m. Sadly there’s no information at all on churn, ARPU or profits.