BSkyB Reports Rise In Revenue And Profit

BSkyB, the home entertainment company which owns Sky News, hailed strong demand from customers for new products as it unveiled quarterly revenue growth which beat City estimates.

The company said first-quarter sales in the three months to the end of September increased by 6% to £1.926bn, slightly ahead of analysts' forecasts.

Pre-tax profit during the period rose by 6% to £417m, while operating profit increased by 11% to £316m.

The stronger performance was driven by the addition of 760,000 paid-for subscription products, including Sky Go Extra, which enables customers to watch content on mobile devices.

Revenue from the on-demand service Sky Store more than doubled during the quarter.

There was also a £429m gain in BSkyB's statutory profit figure from the sale of a 6.4% stake in ITV (LSE: ITV.L - news) , the commercial broadcaster, to Virgin Media's owner, Liberty Global (NasdaqGS: LBTYA - news) .

BSkyB announced the results just weeks before the acquisition of Sky Italia and a majority stake in Sky Deutschland (Other OTC: SKDTF - news) are due to be completed.

Jeremy Darroch, BSkyB chief executive, said that following a year of investment in new technology and products, the company was "seeing the returns coming through".

"This strong financial performance was fuelled by continued operating momentum," he said.

"We are seeing broad customer demand for our products whilst opening up new revenue opportunities.

"The investments that we have made in new connected TV services are delivering growing benefits to our business."

Mr Darroch added that the benefits of diversifying BSkyB's product base were driving "connected customers [to] watch more TV, spend more with us and are more loyal".