Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results

Virgin Media (NASDAQ:VMED)(LSE:VMED) will be announcing its Second Quarter 2011 results on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 7am UK time, 2am ET. The company will host a meeting and conference call for analysts and investors to discuss these results on July 27, at 1pm UK time, 8am ET.

To watch a live webcast of the meeting and view presentation slides, visit the Company's website at www.virginmedia.com/investors.

Replay:

A replay of the webcast will be available for twelve months.

A replay of the teleconference will be available for one week beginning approximately two hours after the end of the call until Wednesday August 3, 2011.


SOURCE: Virgin Media Inc.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Meeting information:
A presentation for analysts and investors will be held in London. Please contact Lulu Bridges at Tavistock Communications for further information. Contact details can be found towards the bottom of this announcement.
Conference call information:
United Kingdom: +44 (0)20 7136 2051
United States: +1 212 444 0481
Passcode: 5731424
To watch a live webcast of the meeting and view presentation slides, visit the Company"s website at www.virginmedia.com/investors.
Replay:
A replay of the webcast will be available for twelve months.
A replay of the teleconference will be available for one week beginning approximately two hours after the end of the call until Wednesday August 3, 2011.
United Kingdom: +44 (0)20 7111 1244
United States: +1 347 366 9565
Passcode: 5731424
Source: NASDAQ Stock Exchange

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Results just been released for the last quarter.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...t-Year-Quarter

http://investors.virginmedia.com/ima...DetailsID=1112

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

50,000 have taken tivo.... pretty good since its only been available for a few months.

Revenue up, but they lost 36,000 customers overall. Not good. Revenues need to be increased with more customers not continual price rises for existing customers.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Well on the first point which is Tivo remember most of these sales were done with existing customers so l think the next quarter results will be more interesting on that score, now with revenue increasing well obviously existing loyal customers are spending more and having more services so thats why that is up l suspect and on the final point in which they have lost 36,000 customers well l think this is down to a variety of factors which are the economic conditions at this present time, prices rises which l think is a big no no with customers at this present time and maybe not offering some customers retention deals when their contract has ended.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Nothing to do with the economic climate I don't think more the competition trying harder, BT's ongoing rollout of higher speed services, more competition in the phone market.

VM previously actually benefitted from the economic climate, people not having the money to go out so spending more on in-home entertainment, both they and Sky have been seeing customer numbers increase recently.

If Sky show a similar drop in TV customers and BT Retail a similar drop in broadband customers I may change my mind.

Broadband growth throughout has slowed down, digital TV growth has slowed down. It's a saturated market for both now, operators are fighting over the same group of customers.

Throwing retentions deals at customers to retain them at any cost is stupid. VM are a business and should charge a profitable price on every customer, I hope they are pursuing that policy more aggressively rather than in the past where people would go on MoneySavingExpert and then phone up expecting triple play and to get paid each month for taking it.

EDIT: Forgot this is also historically a weak quarter of the year for VM anyway. By far the more concerning part about this results is the loss of business revenue.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

l think the next 2 quarters will reveal whether Virgin strategy is working and remember Sky are expected to post weaker results this week as well.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Sky are expected to post similar results to Virgin, slower subscriber growth, focus on upsell to existing customer base - as expected in a more saturated market. Nearly everyone who wants pay TV has got it now, most who want broadband internet have it.

After getting a leg up from the state of the economy back to normal now.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Has anyone been able to read the press release? all i get is a blank white page.

http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/p...ROL-news&nyo=0

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Here it is here.

http://investors.virginmedia.com/ima...DetailsID=1112

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

You don't think a good whack of the 36,000 were perhaps a bit miffed at not getting Sky Atlantic and VM's general lack of commitment to content?

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

No 'cos Sky Atlantic is not very good.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

This is your opinion, many others disagree and I believe disagreed to such an extent they felt it necessary to cancel their virgin media contracts.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Most of these customers were students who cancel their subscriptions around this time of year and will come back in the Autumn.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Seeing as they were predominantly low ARPU customers, and the sort of people who care enough about content to cancel their TV over one channel being missing probably aren't low ARPU customers, no.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Probably find VM are unashamedly indifferent to the customer loss.

http://investors.virginmedia.com/ima...DetailsID=1113

They were largely low value customers.

• 36k net customer loss
• 90% of which were single or dual-play
• 29% of churn were single-play
• 25k net quad-play add

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...6000-customers

I do have some issue with the idea that it's not in their psyche to chase unprofitable business though. Think Mr Berkett needs to remind his retentions teams of that one.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

After watching the Q&As Berkett & co defined low value customers as those spending less than £40 per month. That must include a huge number of lost mid market customers. One insightful investor question asked if they had increased prices too much thus creating customer churn. I'm not an expert but I think that these figures are far worse than the VM board and Investor Relations people are spinning. I'm not saying they are about to go bust, just that the figures are disappointingly mediocre.

My other observation of VM, and this comes from personal experience, is that as soon as there is even the slightest expense regarding connecting a customer to their network they desperately peddle cheapo ADSL services rather than investing in that potential customer. To me that is not concentrating on acquiring and retaining high value customers. So, either they forgot to communicate their strategy to sales, which is unlikely, or they are trying to pull the proverbial wool over investors' eyes.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Remember a lot of these customers were low value student customers who will come back when they go back to university later in the year.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

That is a very good point Denphone and it is one that Berkett made too. What would interest me is if they quantified it or whether they just used it as a throw-away defensive point. I must admit I just skipped to the Q&A, maybe I'll take another look.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

I agree.

I found Berkett's body language very telling in this afternoon's web cast. He may be talking the talk and saying how wonderful things are, but he looked very unhappy, bordering on angry in my opinion.

Yes, this quarter is usually bad for vm, but to lose 36K customers is not good at all, and I don't believe its all down to students and people moving off-net that Berkett claims.

Tivo is a vast improvement over cable's previous EPG efforts. VOD (on demand) is great, when it works. But all this is a means to an end. What good is a better TV guide, if you don't have the content? The lack of news on HD channels and SD channels is deafening.

The competition commission is to report next month into Sky's dominance over first run Hollywood film rights. Sport and films are what drives subscriptions. If vm cannot get their hands on Sky's films at a better rate and/or launch their own film service, as Berkett has always wanted. Then VM will never grow tv subs much beyond what they are now.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Lets see what the next 2 quarters do and also lets see what virgins tv plans are for the rest of the year before passing kneejerk reactions.:)

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Not sure what it's like these days, but banks used to put up with unprofitable student accounts, knowing that if they treat them right, the students will turn into very profitable customers in future. Perhaps VM should follow this logic?

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

I agree as the product offering should be an absolute killer - they now have the best TV and the best superfast internet. The only thing they can get wrong is price, especially considering their continuing problems with negative brand equity.

---------- Post added at 16:36 ---------- Previous post was at 16:34 ----------

I agree and I think to be fair with their 9 month contracts they do this.

---------- Post added at 16:48 ---------- Previous post was at 16:36 ----------

Although whingeing to the regulators to give them more Sky channels is a bit pathetic. They have an exclusive monopoly for cable in the UK, one day, when they are rolling in profit, Ofcom is going to expect some payback.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Does anyone know how the second quarter of this year compares to previous years - did a little looking and found a 9,100 increase in customers last year and a 27,000 drop the year before.

Can anyone confirm or correct?

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

What logic is there to follow? Students sign up for 9 months, go back home, then return to uni the following year where if happy they'll take VM. It's not like a bank account it's a fixed term deal.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Below are the quarterly figures for net cable customers since NTL and Telewest were included in the same figures. They show that this has been the worst quarter since the 3 months to June 2007.

3 Months to Net Change (Cable customers)
30-Jun-11 -36,000
31-Mar-11 20,200
31-Dec-10 17,100
30-Sep-10 14,100
30-Jun-10 7,100
31-Mar-10 38,300
31-Dec-09 28,600
30-Sep-09 8,100
30-Jun-09 -26,200
31-Mar-09 7,100
31-Dec-08 14,800
30-Sep-08 8,300
30-Jun-08 -19,500
31-Mar-08 4,900
31-Dec-07 24,400
30-Sep-07 13,000
30-Jun-07 -70,300
31-Mar-07 -46,900
31-Dec-06 -37,000
30-Sep-06 -37,300
30-Jun-06 -18,900

:eeek:

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

I think what's more telling isn't the headline 36000 'lost' customers, but the changes in TV subs. The 22000 connects in the corresponding quarter of 2010 has become 21000 disconnects in 2011. Must go someway to explaining the dramatic Tivo pricing chahge. Of course this pricing might have been in the plan all along - do 50000 of you fancy lending me £50 for the next few months?

Cheers
Grim

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

I agree with him, Its poop and yes i have watched it.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

My gut instinct tells me that the lack of Sky Atlantic is not a major reason for churn. At the end of the day it's just another channel with American imports and there are plenty more where that came from. As Grim says it's the pricing that's the key and probably a pervading sense of rip off Britain.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

There aren't plenty more of the same quality as on Sky Atlantic - some people can be very dismissive of the channel if they like, but there are many others who see it as a gaping hole in VM's TV service.

I too have watched the channel and 'poop' does not describe the standard of programme on it, I would describe it as 'great'.

It will be interesting to see the figures for the next couple of quarters to see how many of these 36,000 come back.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

GCampbell: I do think that if Berkett takes the right price action and the sales force are given a kick up the posterior (no more of the 'computer says no' attitude, Sky don't have it) they should gain market share in both broadband and pay TV.

Sky's results come out on Friday and will provide some useful market context.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

BT results.

http://www.btplc.com/news/articles/s...e-9e5c783003f5

Some extracts from TBB analysis, for comparison:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/4746.html

251,000 net wholesale DSL additions in the quarter, of which BT Retail's share (BT Broadband customers) was 141,000.

The BT Infinity product gained 71,000 customers, taking the total to over 200,000.

BT Vision continues to grow with some 600,000 customers.

---------- Post added at 10:57 ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 ----------

For what they offer in many fields Virgin's prices are already rock bottom in many different things.

Sorry but the broadband has enough restrictions without them dropping the prices even more to satisfy people who want high end products for pennies and ramping the contention ratios up yet further.

I'd actually far rather they increase the price of the broadband service along with improve its quality

The phone service prices are a bit excessive, TV I've no issue on, broadband service really doesn't need any more price reductions per Mbps. Already the capacity planning causes complaints.

Berkett himself said they don't want unprofitable business, I entirely agree. There is no point in chasing customers who don't want to spend with you, I'm hoping that Berkett / VM finally get this after years of cable in the UK throwing discounts at people like sweets to prevent churn. It's not fair on Joe Average for Money Saving Expert readers to blag their way to lower prices while they continue to pay full whack and cross-subsidise.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Awesome Ignitionnet thanks for the figures. Looking at the BT figures and at Sky's last 2010 annual report they both seem to be adding customers in the hundreds of thousands. They are simply in a different league to VM as far as adding market share goes.

OK, I accept that landline phone prices are excessive and broadband is already good value, especially for speed freaks like you and me. Many customers though see VM making those charges in the same way that they see Ryanair charging extra for baggage (how dare they!) and I think that generally that kind of attitude in companies only adds to the cynicism you see amongst the Money Savings Expert folk.

Do you think the quality of broadband is part of the customer drain?

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

I don't understand this being given as the reason for the loss of customers.

As I understand it, the min contract is for one year. If a student starts in September/October, therefore, their contract runs until August/September.

I know they used to offer students a shorter contract with a deal using the old analogue boxes when they were available, but AFAIK this has been discontinued.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Virgin still offer the 9 month contracts to students, CLICK ME

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

A more down to earth analysis, for comparison:

But the growth in broadband masked a slide in the company’s overall customer base, as households hung up on their home phone services with BT – down 125,000 in the three months to March and more than 600,000 down on a year ago.

The firm’s BT Vision TV service continues to prove a flop, with just 23,000 new customers in the past quarter, taking the total to just over 600,000 - viewing figures are well below expectations and far behind both its main rivals, Sky and Virgin Media.

Group sales have also fallen for more than two years – dropping another 5% to £4.7billion in the quarter – but bosses hope to halt the trend next year.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/city-ne...5875-23304156/

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

I suppose Virgin Media and other similar companies let customers go if they can't get them to upgrade or spend more if they are on those crazy cheap deals like 3 mobile deals when they used to offer something mad like 1,500 minutes,2000 texts for £9.50 back when they first started sim only deals, customers like that are a drain on the company and sometimes it's usually best to let them go if they are not willing to upgrade or spend more.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

FYI from an earlier comment in the thread: BSkyB gained 71,000 customers over the last quarter.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

To be fair to VM, I doubt very much that Sky have the problem of students ditching their services as students are more likely to be in rented accomodation who tend to have cable rather than a Sky dish, therefore Sky aren't going to lose as many in punters in that quarter.

That being said, I'll bet a tenner that there are a fair number of former VM customers in that 71,000.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

Sky's broadband gain over the past year is a much greater story than the 71,000 new punters to be honest.

174,000 in the past 3 months, 711,000 in the past year.

Re: Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results
 

I'm one of them, having up until April subscribed to 3 services at £54+ a month, I now subscribe to the same with Sky (but with faster broadband 18mb as opposed to 10mb as I live close to the exchange) minus ESPN (which we didnt watch) for £40... plus the calls are cheaper... Although I hate murdoch, Virgins recent price increases and the SA V+ box caused me to make the switch.