MONTREAL – Its illico digital cable platform helped to drive growth at Videotron in its first quarter, the Quebec cable giant announced late Wednesday.
Videotron reported 1,729,168 subscribers for its basic cable TV service as of March 31, 2009, an increase of 13,552 households during the quarter. This included 35,831 new digital cable subscribers, bringing its total to 963,153, or 56% of its basic cable base, compared to 49% during the same period last year. Digital cable recorded “the largest growth among all (of Videotron’s) products”, the press release detailed.
Its high-speed Internet subscribers in Québec reached 1,089,251 cable modem subscribers, with 25,404 additional households and businesses signing on this quarter.
The company added 38,931 new cable telephone customers in the quarter, to total 890,918 which Videotron says makes them “the main supplier of residential telephone service in many Québec municipalities”.
As of March 31, 2009, Videotron had activated 68,015 wireless phones, including 4,613 this quarter. Videotron and parent Quebecor Media confirmed plans last October to invest between $800 million to $1 billion over the next four years to develop their own wireless network.
