France Telecom stays on IPTV growth track

France Telecom said in its first-quarter earnings report that it had added 167,000 IPTV customers during the quarter, for a total of 1.41 million IPTV customers across all of its markets. Most of those customer--1.282 million of them--are in France, but France Telecom also is starting to see increasingly rapid subscriber sign-up in its other markets in Europe. For example, in Spain, the French telco's IPTV tally has gone from 14,000 to 75,000 over the last year. The company is moving into other European markets, including the U.K. later this year.

Earnings results showed revenue was up 3.7 percent and profit increased 4.6 percent. France Telecom has been rumored lately to be interested in acquiring Sweden's TeliaSonera, or at least embarking on an M&A strategy of some kind. The telco's CFO yesterday noted that company officials feel that "scale" will be important to France Telecom's future. However, some financial analyst observers are not so sure.

For more:
- see this story [1] at Light Reading Europe

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