Sky reports an 18% profit increase with highest UK customer growth in 11 years

Sky plc, the home and mobile entertainment group which owns Sky News, has reported its highest UK customer growth in over a decade, while announcing an 18% increase in full-year operating profit.

Reporting its annual financial results for the year ending 30 june 2015, the UK’s largest pay-television company revealed that operating profit was £1.4bn, whilst pre-tax profit saw a 6% rise to £1.2bn.

Overall, Sky also experienced a 5% increase in group revenue to £11.3bn, and a 3% rise in full year dividend per share.

These successful results are the first full-year figures since Sky acquired its sister companies in Germany and Italy, which resulted in Sky operating in five total countries.

Further European expansion led to the addition of 973,000 new customers. This was 45% more than the prior year and included 158,000 new customers in Q4. Sky also increased its paid-for subscription products by 4.6 million for the year, which reflected strong demand for its services. This included 829,000 new paid-for products in Q4.

Sky’s performance in its home UK and Ireland market was equally as impressive, with organic customer growth of 506,000, taking the number of home-based customers to more than 12 million for the first time ever.

Jeremy Darroch, Group Chief Executive, said: “The past 12 months have been an outstanding period of growth for Sky. We’ve successfully completed a deal that has transformed the size and scale of opportunity for the business whilst delivering an excellent financial and operational performance as more customers chose Sky and took more of our products.

“Looking ahead, we see an expanded opportunity for growth by serving the market broadly with multiple products and services. The investments we have made have given us a strong platform on which to build and we have a clear set of plans to deliver long-term growth and returns for our shareholders.”