[Satellite TODAY Insider 01-14-11] Sky Deutschland added more than 180,000 subscribers in 2010, picking up about 40,000 during the fourth quarter to reach a total of 2.65 million customers in Germany and Austria, the operator announced in its full-year results issued Jan. 13.
    The company saw its biggest improvement in HD service penetration, adding another 133,000 HD subscribers in the fourth quarter to boost its HD customer ratio to 22 percent out of a total 600,000 HD subscribers.
    Credit Suisse Media Equity Analyst Nick Bertolotti said Sky Deutschland’s 2010 fourth quarter performance could mark a turnaround for the operator, which has had struggled to gain momentum since it acquired the Premiere brand in 2009. However, Bertolotti said his firm remains cautious about the ability of the operator’s current management team to “deliver a sustainably profitable German pay-TV business where many others have failed over the last two decades,” he said.
    UBS Analyst Tamsin Garrity also acknowledged that Sky Deutschland’s year-end tallies are significantly ahead of consensus expectations. “These figures are the first significant beat of consensus expectations for the operator in some time, with HD helping gross adds momentum and improved customer satisfaction leading to churn being 11.8 percent — its lowest level for 21 quarters.”
    Garritty said that Germany has low pay-TV penetration for a reason. “At less than 10 percent, compared with the other major European markets where average penetration is 32 percent, Germany is structurally different from the rest of Europe given that German consumers have had a strong free-to-air offering of about 30 channels for some time. In addition, there is less exclusivity on key rights such as the Bundesliga, where the highlights are shown only a few hours after the live rights. Finally, poor customer service, issues with piracy and the temporary loss of the Bundesliga rights by Premiere has led to a poor image for pay-TV.”
     While Bertolotti said he has not seen a significant change in the operator’s propensity of German households to its premium packages over the last 12 months, he also noted that its stock could perform very strongly for short periods. “With its funding issues potentially solved for at least a year and the roll out of the company’s HD PVRs to kick in during the second quarter of 2011, we see scope for the positive trends in KPIs to continue,” he said.
    Both analysts agree that Sky Deutschland can still achieve 15 to 20 percent market penetration by 2015, and potentially reach 20 percent, suggesting a significant opportunity for subscriber growth. “Sky today has only 2.65 million subscribers compared to a total opportunity of 44 million German and Austrian homes,” Garrity said.