Swisscom adds 5,000 Bluewin TV customers in Q1

May 7, 2008 – Swiss telco Swisscom has reported that it added 5,000 subscribers for its “Bluewin TV” IPTV service in the first quarter of this year, reaching a total of 64,000 paying customers.

The average cost of the Bluewin TV service during the period was reduced to under CHF 1,000 (US$ 949) per customer, including installation, devices etc.  The company added four high-definition channels to its line-up in the period and launched an offering for first-time users without a hard-disk recorder.  Swisscom added 221,000 fixed-line broadband connections between January and March of this year to reach 1.66mn at the end of the period.

Total net revenue from all operations during the period reached CHF 2.933bn, up 23.4% year-on-year.  Net income during the first three months of the year fell 7.2% by the same comparison to reach CHF 428mn, with the fall attributed largely to high financing costs associated with the takeover of Italian telco Fastweb.

For 2008 as a whole the company expects to posts revenues of around CHF 12.3bn and an operating income of around CHF 4.8bn.