Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) - Cyfrowy Polsat is Poland's youngest digital platform launched in 1999.Today, it has 500,000 subscribers while its main and sole rival - Cyfra Plus - 700,000. “If the present growth rate is kept, we may have 1m subscribers within 3-4 years”, Dominik Libicki, Cyfrowy Polsat CEO said. This it the main target of the company owned by media giant Zygmunt Solorz-Zak. No matter how hard Cyfrowy Polsat fights with its competitor, it expects to merge with it in the future. “There is place in the market for one good digital platform and you may expect a merger in the future”, Dominik Libicki said.
Running a platform means big investments, i.e. for decoders given to subscribers. The synergy effects may be quite big: both companies have high costs like the fees for satelite transponder. The CEO said, however, than no talks are being held now with the rival company. Cyfra Plus failed to comment on the news. Analysts comment that talking about a merger in reality means a signal that Cyfrowy Polsat is for sale. According to the data from the National Court Register, the company had negative capitals of PLN 109m (EUR 27.7m) while its cumulated loss amounted to PLN 109.3m. It should reach break-even this year. “The net income, which should amount to PLN 10m, will be the result of dynamic sales growth”, Dominik Libicki stressed. Last year’s sales amounted to PLN 163m while this year, Cyfrowy Polsat plans to have PLN 209.5m of sales from subscription.
“If the management of Cyfrowy Polsat say that it makes sense to merge with Cyfra Plus, I see it as a kind of offer”, Andrzej Zarebski, media expert commented.(PLN 1 = EUR 0.254)