BSkyB will reveal its final year results this week, and is expected to confirm that it has already achieved digital sales past the one million mark, following the implementation of its ‘free box’ offer in June.

Investment analysts at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter estimated that BSkyB had achieved 920,000 digital sales by the end of June (including 320,000 in June itself). Of the 920,000, Morgan Stanley estimated that approximately 39 per cent would be new subscribers. However, the analysts also predicted a high level of analogue churn (12 per cent over the year), leading to a net loss in overall DTH subscribers (3.47 million compared with 3.55 million last year). Morgan Stanley expected BSkyB cable subscribers to stand at 3.24 million at year-end (compared with 2.8 million last year).

The analysts expect marketing and digital costs to affect the final results. Specifically, BSkyB is expected to record a reduced pre-tax profit of Pounds 63.3 million (compared with Pounds 270.4 million last year) before the Pounds 321 provision for converting analogue customers to digital. BSkyB’s reported pre-tax loss for the year is therefore expected to be Pounds 257.7 million. Total revenues for the year are expected to be Pounds 1,527.8 million compared with Pounds 1,433.5 million last year. Other analysts’ estimates of BSkyB’s pre-tax profits for the year are in the Pounds 62-84 million range.