Free sees VOD sales triple

August 28, 2008 - French ISP Free has revealed that subscribers to its "Freebox TV" IPTV service purchased 2,883,000 video on demand titles in the first half of this year, with usage tripling in the past two years following strong take-up of new subscription video on demand offers.

Free has a library of around 10,000 video on demand titles, including i-concerts, TF1 Vision, M6 television and vodeó.tv, and since the end of last July subscribers have also had access to a selection of linear channels.  Free now has 3,134,000 broadband subscribers, which will increase to 3,984,000 following owner Iliad's acquisition of Telecom Italia's French unit Alice, completed yesterday .

Free reported total revenues of €692.2mn for the first six months of this year, up 21% year-on-year, while operating profits rose 26.2% by the same comparison to reach €128mn.  The Iliad group plans to cover 70% of Paris with its Fibre to the Home (FTTH) rollout during the second half of this year.