SES’s German HD Platform Surpasses One Million Households

SES announced that its German HD platform HD+ now exceeds one million paying households. For the full year of 2012, HD+ more than doubled the number of paying customers, from 404,123 to 944,993. HD PLUS expects a growth rate of 25 percent for paying customers in 2013.

As of December 31, 2012, HD+ reached a total of 2.87 million households that either pay for the technical service or are in the free HD+ test phase. This represents an increase of 570,000 (or 25%) households compared to the previous year. The number of households in the free trial period increased to 1.92 million at the end of 2012.

“In less than 40 months, HD+ has developed from a start-up into an important factor in the German television market,” said Wilfried Urner, managing director of the HD PLUS affiliate. “HD+ will continue to be a strong driver of HDTV content in Germany. We will continue to develop the HD+ offer with new products like HD+ RePlay, which gives access to the media libraries of commercial broadcasters.”

Launched on November 1, 2009, HD+ enables households in Germany to receive the following 15 free TV channels in HD quality exclusively via the ASTRA satellite system: RTL HD, Sat.1 HD, ProSieben HD, VOX HD, kabel eins HD, RTL II HD, SUPER RTL HD, N24 HD, TELE 5 HD, SPORT1 HD, DMAX HD, Nickelodeon HD, sixx HD, COMEDY CENTRAL HD and DELUXE MUSIC HD. Customers with an HD+ set-top box can receive another 22 HD channels at no extra charge.