Sky edges nearer to 7m target

Sky is on course to reach its target of 7 million digital subscribers by the end of the year.

The third quarter results (to end March 2003), released today, show a net increase of 150,000 subscribers, taking the total to 6,712,000.

The churn figure, which measures the proportion of subscribers leaving the service, stood at 9.3% for the year, a new low.

ARPU, the average amount each subscriber spends per year, was up £13 on the last quarter to £364. The increase is mainly attributed to UK-wide price rises introduced at the start of the calendar year.

The total of subscribers now taking up an extra digibox was up 17% to 137,000, whilst Sky+ users rose 21% to 79,000.

"We are reporting another strong set of results today," said Tony Ball, BSkyB CEO. "In what is normally a quiet period we have delivered healthy subscriber growth and an operating profit which has almost doubled year on year, thanks to strong revenue growth and sustained cost control. We remain on track to hit all of our targets."