Customers flock to Sky Broadband

Sky Broadband has announced strong growth during the first quarter of this year, with 229,000 new customers signing up for the firm's service.

The company, which is the most rapidly expanding UK provider, now has 1,428,000 consumers on various broadband packages less than two years after entering the market. This figure is almost half of Sky's stated three million target by 2010.

However, overall operating profits for the past three quarters slipped to £521 million from £557 million, down 6.5 per cent.

Sky is believed to be interested in acquiring Italian provider Tiscali as it attempts to sustain growth and consolidate its market position.

Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: "I'm sure we will take a look at that [Tiscali] but you can see from the results that we've posted in broadband today where we've led the market for the fifth quarter in succession, that the business organically is doing very well."

Sky is currently the fourth biggest broadband provider in the UK behind BT on 4.3 million subscribers, Virgin Media on 3.7 million and The Carphone Warehouse on 2.7 million.