Sky Store Movie Sales Reach £100 million

2 Feb, 2016 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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British satellite TV operator Sky said revenue from its Sky Store “Buy & Keep” electronic sellthrough platform reached £100 million on an annualized basis for the fiscal period ended Dec. 31, 2015.

“Buy & Keep” is noteworthy from other EST platforms in that a DVD backup of a movie purchase is delivered to consumers in the mail.

The “Buy & Keep” service was the No. 1 digital retailer in the United Kingdom for several new releases in the quarter, including Minions, Jurassic World and Inside Out. In November, Sky launched a Spectre pre-order campaign, which, along with a similar Star Wars campaign, has seen the largest pre-order digital sales in the U.K.

Sky will launch the “Buy & Keep” platform in Germany later this year.

Sky Store, along with streaming service Now TV, helped the satellite TV operator increase revenue 6% to £4 billion, from £3.8 billion during the previous-year period. Operating profit increased 16% to £756 million, from £650 million a year earlier.

Specifically, entertainment transactional revenue increased 50% over the past two years, driven in large part through the “Buy & Keep” platform, which has about 2.5 million regular users.

As previously reported, Sky entered into long-term deal with CBS-owned Showtime, which includes rights to “The Affair,” “Vinyl,” “Billions” and “The Young Pope,” among others.

“This is a significant move … along with our own [original] productions and HBO partnership,” CEO Jeremy Darroch said on the company's fiscal call.

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