Advanced Television: Movistar Plus grows TV subs by 6.4%

Story from Advanced Television:

Movistar Plus ended H1 2025 with 3.67 million television subscribers, marking a 6.4 per cent year-on-year increase and 224,000 new customers.

The platform’s all-time record was set in June 2019, according to The Objective, with 4.11 million subscribers, closing that year with 4.07 million. Numbers then declined to 3.93 million in 2020 (–3.4 per cent), 3.71 million in 2021 (–5.5 per cent), 3.53 million in 2022 (–5.1 per cent) and 3.43 million in 2023 (–2.8 per cent).

Over four years, the platform shed 647,000 customers — a 16 per cent drop — but in 2024 its figures began to rebound, ending the year with 3.52 million subscribers and regaining another 150,000 in the first six months of the current year. Telefónica’s strategy of marketing Movistar Plus independently from its bundled offers and proprietary fibre network has yielded the expected results. In mid-2023, Telefónica entered direct competition with other platforms, offering a limited selection of content — combining films, original productions, and one weekly Champions League and La Liga match — while keeping its premium package exclusively for convergent bundles.

Convergent packages have now reached 4.58 million subscribers, maintaining the upward trend of the past two years, with an average revenue per user (ARPU) of €91.7 and a churn rate reduced to 0.9 per cent.

By the end of June, Telefónica also came close to its all-time high in fixed broadband customers, with 6.09 million subscribers — just 42,000 short of its record. According to The Objective, by the end of 2024, the company had regained the six-million-user mark in this segment, a milestone it had not reached in five years. The record was set in the fourth quarter of 2018, with 6.13 million customers, before falling to 5.84 million and then starting a slow recovery.

Telefónica continues to strengthen its fibre-optic deployment strategy, with 31.09 million homes passed — nearly 100 per cent coverage across Spain — and a 30 per cent utilisation rate. This means 10 million customers use Telefónica’s network, six million of whom are its own clients. The market is still led by MasOrange with 7.20 million customers, followed by Vodafone with 2.89 million and Digi with over two million.