not even football saves the accounts

Telefonica he cannot connect the Spaniards with his own TV. One of the great bets of the Italian operator in recent years has to do with TV. Investment in own content, in football, in agreements with third parties … Movistar + has it allbut it fails to capture users’ attention and the figures confirm this.

Specific, Telefónica has lost TV customers for nine consecutive quarters. And this has an unflattering ending: reached an all-time low in terms of the number of subscribers, 3,553,100 (in the third quarter of 2020 they were 4 million). It is the lowest figure since the company bought DTS (Canal +). The problem, too, is that there is no clear prospect that the trend will change.

This is reflected in the quarterly accounts he presented the club chaired by José María Álvarez-Pallete last Friday. A year ago the operator had 200,000 more customers than at the time. Furthermore, something that is no longer received with the loss of broadband customers. In other words, there was a similar volume before, as it was the customers who left the company. Now, they are simply users who don’t want television services.

And that the prospects are not good is due to three factors: The first has to do with the “free” hiring of film series and platforms. Its acceptance is increasing and the recognition is absolute among the public. The second, linked to this, is that people prefer not to have fiber, fixed and TV ‘packages’; but choose to rent everything separately, including audiovisual entertainment. And finally, football, albeit with a greater offer, is no longer the only actor who offers it, and which also generates doubts among consumers.

In all this scenario, Telefónica decided a few months ago to use a new commercial approach with the launch of MiMovistar. The goal was to give users more flexibility when signing contracts, and guys used that margin. The problem is that the punishment was taken by the television business. Although it is true that other problems are improving.

Telefónica improves profitability

Bad TV. But Telefónica knows how to move smartly when it comes to creatingr more value. Those numbers for optimism are on the rise Arpu (profitability per customer) from 88.5 euros in June 2021 to 90.5 euros in the 3rd quarter of 2022. Not just a growth in a context of trade war where aggressive pricing has been the trend of recent years. Something that has forced all companies to adjust prices and rates, always downwards.

The other key parameter is the ‘churn‘, which corresponds to the churn rate of customers who come to the company. In this case, it has gone from 1.4% a year ago, to the current 1.2%, a figure that Telefónica celebrated with great effusion as it is the lowest value since 2016. And again, all this in a context commercial where competition was extreme from all players.

Some positive global data

As for group behavior, Telefónica posted a net profit of 1,486 million euros until September after accelerating in the third quarter and between July and September his income rose by 11.2% to 10,343 million euros.

In the first nine months of the year, the company had revenues of 29,793 million euros, which represents an increase of 0.6% over the previous year, according to the financial results presented on Friday before the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).

In addition, it recorded an operating profit before depreciation (Oibda) of 9,593 million euros, which negatively affected the comparison by discounting the impact of last year’s merger in the United Kingdom and the sale of the Telxius towers, extraordinary elements that also make it impossible. the comparison of the net profit.