1.2m customers taking YouView from TalkTalk by end Sept: the fastest growing TV business in the market
Strongest broadband, fibre and mobile performance as demand for value for money products increases
Follows on from launch of TalkTalk’s first true play quad bundle, offering Plus TV customers a free SIM
TalkTalk has today announced that it signed up 300,000 customers in the first half the year, taking the number of customers taking its YouView TV service to 1.2m, 33% of its base. In addition to strong growth in TV, TalkTalk has also reported that it is seeing accelerating growth across broadband, mobile and fibre as customers take more of its value for money products.
TalkTalk’s YouView offering strongly appeals to family households and Freeview upgraders who wish to take a little bit of content, not a lot, and without being tied into long term contracts. The movies rented by customers increased 88% compared to last year, with the most popular films from June – September in TalkTalk homes being The Lego Movie, Noah and Non Stop.
There was also a real increase in customers purchasing one of TalkTalk’s flexible monthly TV Boosts, with the most popular boosts purchased in the first half of the year being one of the Movies Boosts (Sky Movies and Picture Box), Entertainment (including channels like Sky One, Sky Living and Comedy Central) and Kids (including Disney and Nickelodeon).
As part of the continued development of its content offering, TalkTalk broadened and extended its existing wholesale offer with Sky earlier in the year to include catch up content for Sky Movies and Sky Sports, and added Sky Sports 5 to its line up. That means YouView from TalkTalk is the only place to watch all the Sky Sports channels, available on a month-by-month basis, daily through Now TV, with additional pay per view content via Sky Sports Box Office.
Following the launch of Netflix on YouView, customers can also pre-register to enjoy Netflix on TalkTalk TV from early in the New Year.
As well as continued TV growth, in the three months to the end of September, TalkTalk added 15,000 broadband customers. This is the strongest organic growth in 4 years and reflects a real demand for its best value unlimited broadband products. TalkTalk remains the only provider to offer totally unlimited broadband across all packages. With the average household now downloading an average 46Gbps a month this offers real value for money.
All of this means TalkTalk is brilliantly positioned as the market moves to quad-play. Continuing on the success of its mobile base – available exclusively to TalkTalk customers – the company recently launched its first true quad-play bundle, offering a SIM worth £90 to its top tier TV customers. Offering 100 minutes, 250 texts and 200 MB of data, it will cover the needs of the average TalkTalk mobile customer and represents especially good value for those who may want to give it to their child or an elderly relative. With a further 64,000 customers choosing to take mobile in the first half, TalkTalk now has a mobile base of 348,000, 9.5% of the base.
Alongside this strong product growth, TalkTalk continued to improve its customer experience especially by developing its online self-service offering to great customer response. The My TalkTalk app, which lets customers diagnose and troubleshoot service issues and manage their bills, has now been downloaded over 300,000 times, and over 84% of customers are now registered for an online My Account. Over the 1.4million interactions via My Account between June and September, only 6% need to go on to call.
Commenting on the results, Tristia Harrison, Managing Director of Consumer, said: “With more families looking to save money on household bills, its great to see them turning to TalkTalk for more of their essential communications services. We have the fastest growing TV service in the UK as our flexible, affordable YouView TV offering attracts families who want to pay a little for more content, not a lot. We are equally excited about the growth we are also seeing in broadband and mobile, and hope that our best value broadband, TV and mobile packages can help make more families across Britain better off.”