On-Demand Sky Downloads in U.K., Ireland Jumped 63% in Q3

In the U.K. and Ireland, Sky has connected more than 1 million boxes in the year to date, “taking our connected base to almost 7 million homes,” the company said Tuesday in its Q3 earnings announcement. This has driven on-demand downloads to more than 300 million during Q3, up 63 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, Sky said. In Italy, roughly a third of Sky customers have now connected their boxes to the Internet with the connected home strategy being deployed in Germany for the first time this quarter, it said. “This growing penetration of connected devices is enabling us to drive growth in revenues from new products and services.” For example, more than half a million customers in the U.K. and Ireland have purchased one or more movies from the Sky Store, and the service regularly ranks No. 1 or 2 among digital retailers for new releases, Sky said.