Sweden's NENT eyes subscriber growth in 2021 ahead of U.S launch

"Reported revenue is mildly below expectations, price rises are coming but will clearly take place later in the year, the group has paused the dividend pending the capital raise," investment bank Citi said in a note. NENT, which is currently launching Nordic noir series "Trom", set in the Faroe Islands, and dystopian Swedish film "Glacier", expects another 650,000 paying subscribers this year, of which 250,000 will be in new markets.

Swedish media group NENT , a regional rival to streaming giants Netflix and Disney, expects strong subscriber growth this year after swinging to a fourth quarter profit. Shares in NENT, whose streaming service Viaplay is its biggest growth driver, have jumped over 130% since mid-March as people have stayed at home to help curb the coronavirus pandemic, increasing viewing figures.

Sector giant Netflix has seen its shares rise about 72% in the period. NENT shares fell 7.4% at 1031 GMT. "Reported revenue is mildly below expectations, price rises are coming but will clearly take place later in the year, the group has paused the dividend pending the capital raise," investment bank Citi said in a note.

NENT, which is currently launching Nordic noir series "Trom", set in the Faroe Islands, and dystopian Swedish film "Glacier", expects another 650,000 paying subscribers this year, of which 250,000 will be in new markets. NENT plans to roll out Viaplay in 10 international markets by the end of 2023 - including the United States this year - while targeting 10.5 million subscribers by 2025, up from over 3 million currently.

With Netflix the market leader in the Nordics, NENT also competes with Disney, which launched Disney+ in the Nordics last autumn. Local competitors include Bonnier Broadcasting's C More, owned by Telia Company, and Swedish state-owned SVT. NENT CEO Anders Jensen said it would not be easy for "the globals to just come in and ramp up".

"We are very humble for competition but we know pretty well where we have the globals in that respect. Competition is fierce, but we're in a good position," he told an investor call. Operating profit at NENT, which is planning an equity raise of more than 3.5 billion crowns to fund expansion, was 117 million crowns ($14.0 million) versus a loss of 237 million a year ago. Quarterly like-for-like sales grew 6.1%.

It had previously said it would book an impairment charge of around 900 million crowns, relating to operations it is in the process of selling.