Beleaguered Scandinavian broadcaster Viaplay has suffered a dip in subscribers for the second quarter (Q2) and first half (H1) of the 2024 calendar year, but has seen losses narrow significantly in the period, detailing the company’s continued progress toward emerging from its financial predicament.
Throughout 2024, Viaplay has undertaken a policy of slimming down its offerings and divesting from all but its key markets, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries.
Viaplay’s strategy has paid dividends in some areas, but hampered others, signified by a 4% growth in net sales for the first quarter of the year contrasting with a 20% drop in subscribers over the same period.
This trend has continued into the April-June Q2 period, where sales across the group’s core operations grew by a further 2.6% year-on-year (YoY) on Q2 2023, while subscribers continued to fall, a fact Viaplay owes to an increase in prices across all markets.
Overall in Q2, which covers the period between January and June this year, Viaplay made a SEK 120 million ($11.4 million) loss in the quarter, a figure that Viaplay says fits within its budgetary expectations and is well below the SEK 5.8 billion ($549.7 million) it lost in Q2 2023, showcasing the length to which the streamer has narrowed its losses.
Jørgen Madsen Lindemann, Viaplay Group president and chief executive, stated: “The operating loss of SEK 72 million for our core operations is in line with our full year outlook and reflected higher sports costs. The weakness of the Swedish krona also continued to exert a negative effect on our profitability.
“The exit from our non-core international markets is ongoing, and we completed the sale of the Viaplay UK operation in Q2, having exited the Baltic markets in Q1.
“We have made good progress so far, but much remains to be done for us to retransform back into the successful, competitive, profitable, cash flow positive, and shareholder value creating company that we were.”
Lindemann also indicated that the second half of 2024 may yet see further growth, owing to the onset of a number of its season sports rights and major showpiece events in the latter half of the year.
In Q2, Viaplay renewed its partnership with motor racing’s Formula 1 which sees it remain the series’ official broadcaster in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands through 2029.
On August 25, the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix of F1 will take place with reigning champion Dutch driver Max Verstappen among the favorites for the race, something that Viaplay hopes will boost its Netherlands business.
In May, Viaplay also secured the rights to UEFA’s trio of international club competitions for the 2024-27 period, and with those three tournaments set to begin in earnest in August, Lindemann also believes that will bring greater interest in Viaplay from prospective customers.
Viaplay will cover the top-tier UEFA Champions League exclusively in Sweden and Denmark, the second-tier Europa League and third-tier Conference League exclusively in Norway and Finland, while in Iceland all those competitions will be shown on a non-exclusive basis.
