It is traditional at the end of yet another calendar year for everyone in our market to count up how well IPTV is going, by paying attention to the annual figures of operators that are doing well in this area. But Telia, operating in tiny Sweden, population of 9 million, with just 3.7 pay TV homes, has grabbed 8% of that market with IPTV in a few short years.
This week it said it had reached 300,000 customers for its digital TV service which amounts to an addition of some 100,000 customers in each of the last two quarters, coupled with a major increase in VoD movie rentals. Back in June the company said it only had 100,000 accounts.
Telia has some experience running a pay TV operation, since it used to own cable company Com Hem. Back in 2003 the European Commission forced the sale this cable operation as one of the conditions for allowing Telia and Sonera to merge, and Sweden’s largest cable TV business was picked up by private equity firm EQT Partners. Since then UPC Sweden has been added to it, taking subscribers to 1.7 million, a big chunk of those 3.7 million pay TV homes.
The 300,000 mark was passed in the early days of January corresponding to a big jump in movie rentals which began over Christmas and New Year, with customers renting 68,000 films. Many larger incumbents would kill for an 8% IPTV penetration, from a standing start, in under two years.