New Sky Customers Boost Dividend

THE INCOME INVESTOR: Revenues and customers grew for BSkyB last year, despite BT launching its new sports channel, helping the company increase its interim dividend

Allan C. Nichols, CFA 25 February, 2014 | 3:30PM
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British Sky Broadcasting (BSY), known as BSkyB, grew revenues 6.3% last year thanks to the acquisition of O2's broadband business, but was hurt from the loss of ESPN.

The second quarter is historically a strong quarter for subscriber growth because of the Christmas selling season, but this year's was the best in several years, which portends good results going forward. Despite BT Group's (BT.A) launch of its sports channels, BSkyB added 873,000 paid-for subscriptions during the quarter. For the past 12 months, total products increased 12.9% to 33.3 million. We were particularly concerned about the firm's ability to continue to increase its broadband business given BT is providing its new sports channels free to its broadband customers.

However, BSkyB still added 110,000 broadband customers during the quarter. This is below its quarterly run rate for the past year, but we are pleased it is still significantly positive. Additionally, this slower growth was more than made up for by success in selling other services, such as HD and Sky Go. The extra services the firm sold and price increases on some services led to an average revenue per user increase of 2.2% from the year-ago period. We expect BSkyB will continue to expand its customer base and average revenue per user, allowing its revenue to grow in the mid-single-digit range.

As expected, the higher cost of the Premier League pressured the firm's margins. Its earnings before taxes margin was 21.1% versus our full-year projection of 21.8%. However, this quarter included integration costs from the purchase of O2's broadband business, which should reduce going forward. We still anticipate BSkyB's full-year earnings before taxes margin will be in line with our estimate. The firm also increased its interim dividend by 9% to 12p per share.

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar
Rating
BT Group PLC147.70 GBX-1.43Rating

About Author

Allan C. Nichols, CFA  is a senior stock analyst and international investing specialist with Morningstar.

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