Media giant BSkyB ( Sky Broadband ) has released its latest set of quarterly results to 30th September 2010 and revealed that they are now home to 2,802,000 broadband ISP subscribers. That's an impressive increase of +178,000 net additions above Q2-2010's +119,000 and Q1's +101,000.

Sky also added +203,000 new telephony customers (+137,000 in Q2) and +260,000 line rental customers (+214,000 in Q2). Similarly the number of Sky's 2.8m broadband customers who are connected to its fully unbundled ( LLU ) platform has grown from 883,000 in Q2 to over 1 Million now. The rest are on its shared LLU or BT based packages.

The boost has come from a mix of new services (e.g. Sky 3D) and a strong advertising campaign. Over 50% of new customers in the quarter joined Sky with all three (triple play) of TV, broadband and telephony. Some 23% (2.3 million) of Sky's total customer base, which is almost 10 Million strong, now take all 3 products.


The extra +36% growth surge between Q2 and Q3 is extremely impressive and we suspect that Sky will find it difficult to maintain. The strong operational performance in home communications also translated into a 39% increase in broadband and telephony revenue, to £187 million, more than offsetting growth in direct network costs of 32% (£129 million / 2010: £98 million). Overall Group revenue increased to £1,526 million (2010: £1,330 million), up 15% year on year.

In related news, Sky Anytime+, Sky's new internet delivered video-on-demand (VoD) service, is to begin rolling-out to millions of Sky+HD homes. Launching to customers from Tuesday next week, Sky+HD set-top boxes will be able to connect to the Sky Broadband network to access a comprehensive on-demand service, providing even more choice and control to complement Sky+ and the existing Sky Anytime ‘push' VoD service.

Sadly Sky's financial results make no mention of its future broadband plans. Almost every other major ISP has either begun or at least hinted at where they intend to go (i.e. superfast fibre optic broadband), although Sky continues to be silent. That position is fine for now, after all they only just stopped subsidising their existing platform, but it could become a problem towards the end of next year as coverage improves.

Sky will hopefully not want to lose its customers to rivals who can offer significantly faster broadband. Orange and O2 ( Be Broadband ) are also in a similar boat. Right now the issue is not crucial but they should at least be planning for the future so they can be ready for when it arrives.