Sony's PlayStation Vue live-streaming TV service has acquired as many as 120,000 subscribers, according to Bloomberg.
The report, which cites several anonymous sources "with knowledge of the matter," puts the OTT service's customer count at between 100,000 to 120,000.
Sony has not released any official numbers, and reps for the company didn't immediately respond to FierceCable's inquiry.
The leak comes three months after Sony restructured the IP-delivered pay-TV service and made it available nationally, reducing pricing and offering skinnier programming packages. Since launching on a regional basis in March 2015, Sony has steadily expanded Vue's availability, both in terms of territory and devices — it now plays on Roku and Amazon OTT boxes, as well as on iOS and Android devices.
Sony has also carved out key programming deals, such as one with Disney/ESPN.
"They haven't been public with their numbers, so I can't be specific. But what we've been told is that their numbers in terms of sub adoption has gone up tremendously," Disney CEO Bob Iger said of Vue at an investor conference in May.
Bloomberg cited the same sources as saying that Dish Network's (NASDAQ: DISH) competing IP-based service, Sling TV, is now up to 700,000 customers.
While Sling TV and Vue were first to market with virtualized pay-TV services, a flurry of competition is about to hit the market. Not only is AT&T set to launch IP-based versions of its DirecTV (NYSE: T) service at the end of the year, Hulu is developing a live-streamed pay-TV product for launch next year.
For more:
- read this Bloomberg story
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