UK satellite TV company BSkyB's pretax profit surged in its third quarter as it added 95,000 subscribers, ahead of analyst estimates.
Pretax profit excluding goodwill and exceptional items for the three months to March 31 rose to £209 million from £135 million a year earlier, the company said today.
Revenues climbed 9 per cent to £1.02 billion.
Despite the strong subscriber and profit numbers, analysts voiced concerns about higher marketing costs and an uptick in churn, or the percentage of customers who left Sky during the quarter.
Sky, which has launched an aggressive marketing campaign as part of Chief Executive James Murdoch's controversial growth strategy, said marketing costs increased more than four-fold to £379 million pounds, or 13 per cent of revenue.
Mr Murdoch's strategy has received mixed reviews from investors and analysts, some of whom are concerned the company may pay too high a cost to win new subscribers. Mr Murdoch is the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp conglomerate owns more than a third of the company.
Shares rose 0.5 per cent to £5.355 pence this morning, after losing 1.3 per cent yesterday on concerns about costs.