The traditional pre-Christmas upsurge in Sky sales was the strongest in years last year, the company announced this morning.

Delivering results for the three months ended December 31, BSkyB confirmed a net subscriber growth of 215,000 to 8,059,000. This takes the total subscriber base over the previously announced 8 million target and is not only an increase on the 192,000 achieved in the equivalent period in 2004 but also the best increase in any quarter for three years.

Sky+ households increased by 254,000 to 1.28 million and multiroom households by 158,000 to 906,000 - both record increases and in the case of the latter, an increase of almost 100% over the last year.

Despite the significant growth in the quarter, Sky now anticipates two of its quietest quarters to date. "[We] expect the phasing of subscriber growth to be weighted towards the second half of this calendar year," said the company. "Continued growth is anticipated [in the upcoming two quarters], with the Group planning to add a total of 100,000 net subscribers by 30 June 2006."

Elsewhere, churn - measuring the proportion of subscribers choosing to exit the service - dropped to 10.6% from last quarter's highly concerning 11.7%. The figure is still above the company's medium-term target of 10% but warned that it was likely to be around 11% for this finanicial year.

ARPU, the average amount a subscriber will spend in a year, was up by £12 to £397, just shy of the company's £400 target. This was mainly a result of the widespread price increases introduced on September 1.

Among the financial highlights, revenues were up 9% over the six months ended December 31 to £2.136 billion, with DTH revenues increasing 9% to £1.554 billion and advertising revenue increasing 8% to £171 million.

Programming costs remained flat, rising just £4 million to £810 million, mostly a result of a reduction in third party channel costs (£15 million) and a decrease in movie costs through better contract deals.

"The business is moving forward on all fronts," said chief exec James Murdoch. "In the last quarter, more customers joined Sky than at any time in the last three years and we've seen record growth in Sky+ and Multiroom households. Now nearly one in three families chooses Sky."