KPN grows subscriber market share in the Netherlands

Friday, December 11th, 2015 

KPN grows market share to 28% of Dutch TV subscriptions in Q3 2015

HOUTEN, The Netherlands — KPN continues to grow its share of the Dutch TV market, at the expense of cable operator Ziggo. KPN added 0.4 percentage points in the third quarter to take 28 percent of subscribers, while Ziggo lost 0.5 percent points for a share of 52.8 percent, according to Telecompaper’s latest quarterly report on the Dutch Television Market.

“Ziggo is struggling to halt the steady decline in cable’s market share,” said Telecompaper analyst and report author Kamiel Albrecht. “Its new Ziggo Sport channel, launched exclusively for Ziggo TV subscribers, is expected to help slow its loss of customers and could provide a boost to growth in digital TV subscribers.”

KPN has taken advantage of Ziggo’s difficulties since the cable operator merged with UPC early in 2015. The main challenger on the TV market ended the quarter with 2.199 million subscribers, including 1.795 million over IPTV. On the digital TV market, KPN won 0.5 percentage points in the quarter to reach 31 percent of subscribers.

Despite losing customers, Ziggo is still market leader with 4.14 million TV subscribers at the end of September 2015. Its digital TV subscriber base fell for a third consecutive quarter to 3.336 million, good for 48 percent of the digital TV market.

In total, the Dutch TV market lost 9,000 subscriptions during the quarter to end September 2015 at 7.84 million, of which more than 88 percent were using digital TV services. Digital TV connections grew by 0.4 percent during the quarter, while analogue-only subscribers fell by 4.2 percent compared to June. Telecompaper estimates that the TV services market* generated EUR 449 million in revenues in the third quarter of 2015, stable compared with the second quarter.

In the five years to 2019, the total TV market is expected to show an average annual decrease of 0.5 percent in the number of TV subscriptions. Almost all households already have a TV connection and fewer are taking subscriptions for second TVs, in favour of watching video on tablets, computers and other devices. At the same time so-called ‘cord-cutters’ and ‘cord-nevers’ are abandoning traditional TV subscriptions altogether in favour of online video services.

* The reported retail revenues are based on revenues from mass market consumer and SOHO subscriptions. The total includes revenues from basic TV subscriptions (digital/analogue), pay-TV services and video-on-demand services and excludes revenues from installation fees and set-top box sales.

Due to continuous improvements in our calculations, the numbers in this press release cannot directly be compared with numbers from earlier press releases sent out by Telecompaper on previous studies of the Dutch television market.

Telecompaper’s ‘Dutch TV Market 2015 Q3’ report provides detailed figures for Q3 2015 and five-year forecasts for subscriptions, revenues, and provider and technology market shares. Price for 10 users is EUR 595.00. Single-user price for the report is EUR 395.00.