As part of its Q4 2020 results report presentation, AT&T reported a total of 10.942 million subscribers to Vrio, a unit owned by the telecommunications company, that controls DirecTV’s operations in Latin America and Sky’s in Brazil. As in Q3, Vrio featured positive net additions again, since, as of September 30th, 2020, it reported 10,893 million subscribers, adding 49 thousand in the last three months of the year.
Vrio’s positive net additions have been recorded since September 30th, 2020. According to the report, the company ended June with a total of 10,664 million subscribers; to then report the already mentioned 10,893 million in September, and ended 2020 with almost 11 million customers.
In addition, on an annual basis, Vrio’s results show a drop in subscribers: AT&T’s unit ended Q4 2019 with a total of 13,331 million customers, which means a decrease of 2,389 million annually. This figure includes DirecTV clients in Venezuela, where the DTH stopped operating in May 2020. In mid-August, the Scale Capital firm agreed to acquire DirecTV in the country, where it is currently operating as ‘Simple TV’ . Likewise, at the time of its closure, DirecTV had around 2.2 million subscribers in Venezuela.
In addition, as reported from Reuters last week, AT&T is holding talks with the TPG investment fund, in order for it to acquire a stake of the DTH operations. However, the telecommunications company confirmed that DirecTV’s operations in Latin America will not be sold, so, if the transaction is successful, both Sky’s operations in Brazil and DirecTV’s in Latin America will continue under the control of Vrio.
Another of AT& T’s projects for 2021 in Latin America is the launch of HBO Max, a new SVOD OTT that WarnerMedia (AT&T) launched in the US at the end of May last year. According to AT&T’s Q4 2020 results report, the platform ended 2020 with a total of 41.5 million subscribers (between HBO Max and HBO subscribers in the US). Days ago, WarnerMedia appointed the management team that will be in charge of the launch of HBO Max in Latin America, where it is expected to be available around mid-2021.