British pay-TV giant BSkyB on Thursday posted rising annual net profits on solid demand for its television, Internet and telephone services despite a poor economic climate.

Earnings after tax jumped to 906 million pounds ($1.4 billion, 1.15 billion euros) in the group's 2011/2012 financial year which ran until the end of June.

That compared with net profit of 810 million pounds in 2010/2011, the group said in a results statement.

BSkyB added that annual revenues increased by 3.0 percent to 6.79 billion pounds and said it would return 500 million pounds to shareholders via a share buyback.

"In what remains a tough economic environment, customers are choosing Sky over other providers," said chief executive Jeremy Darroch.

"We've continued to add new households and existing customers are remaining loyal and taking more products from us."

BSKYB has 10.6 million paying customers after signing up a net 312,000 clients in its last financial year.

The company is successfully moving on from a failed takeover bid by its biggest shareholder News Corp. last year.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation abandoned its bid to win full control of BSkyB in the wake of a phone-hacking scandal that forced it to shut British tabloid newspaper News of the World.

News Corp. had bid 7.8 billion pounds for the 60.9 percent of BSkyB it did not already own. BSkyB had rejected the 700-pence-per-share offer even before the bid collapsed.

BSkyB broadcasts the 24-hour Sky News channel, English Premier League football and blockbuster movies and also provides broadband Internet and telephone services.

Following the latest results, BSkyB shares were up a solid 1.68 percent to 697 pence in late morning deals on London's benchmark FTSE 100 index, which was down 0.24 percent at 5,484.92 points.