Cable television service with six thousand new clients in the 1st quarter

At the end of the first quarter of 2005, the subscribers of the cable television distribution service were about 28% of all Portuguese households, or around 1.4 million subscribers, six thousand more than in the previous quarter.

During this period, 37% of the cabled households (3.813 million households) were subscribers to the cable television distribution service. The rate of subscribers to this service in the Portuguese population stood at 13.3%.

The number of cabled households reached 3.813 million in March, 1.1% more than in the previous quarter. Regarding the same period of the previous year, 157 thousand more households were cabled.

In the first quarter, the number of cabled households in the autonomous regions and in the Lisbon area remained practically unchanged. The highest growth in this indicator (5.3%) occurred in the Algarve.

No significant changes in the distribution of cabled households among the various regions were registered. The Lisbon region continues to concentrate most of the cabled households (47%) followed by the North region, with 28%, and the Centre, with 14%. Algarve has 5% of all cabled households; Alentejo has 3%, followed by the Autonomous Region of Madeira, with 2%, and the Azores, with 1%.

Regarding the evolution in the number of subscribers - 1.405 by the end of March - Lisbon, with 712 thousand clients, had the highest quarterly growth, 0.7%, followed by Porto, which grew 0.5% and reached 329 thousand clients.

During the first quarter there was no change in the distribution of cable television subscribers by region. The Lisbon region concentrated half of the total number of cable television subscribers.

In the same period, the television distribution service with Direct to Home (DTH) technology had 387 thousand subscribers, 1.9% less than in the previous quarter, and 1.8% more than in the same quarter of the previous year.

Lisbon has the highest growth, with a 3.6% increase in the number of clients, followed by the Autonomous Region of Madeira, with 1.9% more.

The North and Centre Regions continue to have the highest number of subscribers (31% and 32%, respectively).

Consult:

Quarterly reports by service http://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=277884