In the third quarter of 2012 Sweden’s largest cableco Com Hem’s revenues totaled SEK1.133 billion (USD168 million), up by SEK7 million year-on-year, and EBITDA also climbed moderately, by SEK26 million year-on-year to SEK582 million, while the company increased its three-month CAPEX to SEK167 million, up from SEK143 million in 3Q11. High speed cable internet subscriptions were virtually flat quarter-on-quarter, at 544,300 at the end of September 2012, a net decrease of 300 in three months, while fixed telephony customers fell by 5,000 in the period to 355,200, and digital cable TV subscriptions dropped by 8,000 to 612,700. Tomas Franzen, president of Com Hem, stated that ‘in a highly competitive market, we are delivering stable earnings, thus enabling us to continue to invest in products and services, including our new TiVo TV platform [a multi-screen ‘TV everywhere’ type solution], which we will be rolling out in the market in 2013.’
Com Hem reported that the number of households connected to its cable network was 1.75 million at the end of September 2012, a figure which fell from 1.77 million twelve months earlier. Its premium DOCSIS 3.0-based 200Mbps broadband packages are available to more than 1.6 million of these households, while the company also reported the number of connected households in open networks through its iTUX communications services unit (including urban network iTUX Gothenburg [formerly Gothnet]) rose by 3,000 in the third quarter to 75,000; the number of contracted households was 107,000 at 30 September, it added. Com Hem currently offers its triple-play services over open network/urban fibre networks in nine cities (‘Com Hem via Fiber och Stadsnat’), namely Gothenburg, Malmo, Falun, Harnosand, Lund, Lulea, Timra, Kristianstad and Jarfalla, the most recently added being Lulea last month.