[MERGED] Virgin Media Second Quarter 2009 Results

[joglynne]

The quarterly results have now been published.


http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/p...613&highlight=

[robthewizz]

A Few bits that might interest people......

Broadband

• Broadband customer net increase of 5,100 (Q2-08: 54,600) to 3.74m (Q2-08: 3.56m)
• New and existing customers are choosing faster broadband, improving tier mix
• Broadband customers with 10Mb or higher increased 86% year-on-year to 1.75m
• 47% year-on-year increase in aggregate headline speed
• 2Mb to 10Mb upgrade programme underway – 385,000 customers upgraded to date
• 50Mb broadband roll-out complete; 200Mb customer pilot underway

In broadband, we have achieved a significant improvement in our tier mix, which together with related price increases, is driving on-net ARPU growth. This also reflects growing consumer appetite for faster broadband speeds and demonstrates that Virgin Media continues to lead and define the developing market for high-speed broadband. We are in the process of upgrading our 2Mb customers to 10Mb. Ahead of schedule, we have completed the roll-out of our ultrafast 50Mb product and more than 12 million homes throughout the UK now have access to our next generation broadband services. The aggregate headline speed of our customer base has grown by 47% in the last twelve months and will continue to grow, driving both revenue growth and our competitive advantage. We continue to look ahead to see how we can further develop our high-speed network and provide broadband services of the future for our customers - our customer pilot of 200Mb is well underway.

Television

• TV customer net increase of 20,400 (Q2-08: 24,800) to 3.67m (Q2-08: 3.54m)
• Video-on-demand (VOD) usage rises to 55% of digital customers (Q2-08: 48%)
• Highest ever average VOD views of 62m per month (Q2-08: 38m)

In television, our market leading video-on-demand (VOD) service is being enjoyed by more of our customers more frequently, with 62 million views each month on average during the quarter. We also announced the launch of six new High Definition (HD) channels to complement our existing linear and popular on-demand line-up. We plan to launch more HD channels with a focus on content which benefits most from being shown in HD. We currently have around 300 hours of HD programming on our VOD service and are looking to secure more content of this nature.

We have announced the launch of six new HD channels from Channel 4, ESPN, LIVING, FX, MTV and National Geographic. These will be available for free to all subscribers of our top basic TV tier “XL� with our V+ DVR and Channel 4 HD will be available to all digital TV subscribers along with BBC HD. We plan to launch more HD channels with a focus on content which most benefits from being shown in HD. In addition, recent proposals from Ofcom, the UK telecoms and media regulator, would enable us to offer our customers certain Sky Sports HD and Sky Movies HD channels, which BSkyB would be obliged to provide at a regulated wholesale price. The detail of this proposal is now under consultation.

Link to full Report is Here:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...xUeXBlPTM=&t=1

Enjoy!!!

[Raistlin]

2 Threads Merged.

Jo just beat you to it robthewhizz, to Cable Forum

[dsmuk]

Telephony

Telephony net disconnections for the quarter were 4,300 (Q1-09: 9,100 net adds; Q2-08: 3,400 net adds). Telephony growth was affected by the seasonal increase in churn. 53% of our telephony customers subscribe to one of our unmetered tiers (or Talk plans) compared to 51% a year earlier. Revenue from metered telephony usage (i.e. from those customers not on Talk plans) declined 8% as compared to the same quarter last year, partly due to a reduction in usage minutes and partly due to the increase in the
percentage of unmetered customers.

Overall outbound usage minutes declined 11% versus a year ago and had a negative impact on on-net ARPU. The rate of decline in fixed line telephony usage is in line with our expectations and as the only company in the UK to be offering a quad play offering, our exposure to this declining market is partly mitigated by our mobile business

Surely this is going to have to be addressed, they lost 4,300 telephone customers and those they do have are using it less.

VOD seems to be going from strength to strengths, with another 53% increase - unsurprisingly that is where they have put a lot of focus. They just need to improve the interface and it will be perfect!

[TheDon]

How do you suggest they address it though? The landline is dying, more and more people are using VOIP, and near everyone has a mobile. I can't remember the last time I used my landline, and no one ever calls it when they can call my mobile and guarantee I'll be there, especially as they're all calling off mobiles with inclusive minutes so it doesn't cost them any more.

The only was to address it is to diversify and pick up the revenue elsewhere.

[lawe]

Indeed, land lines are becoming a afterthought now as people with mobile contracts would rather use that than using the phone that might cost money.

I have VM L phone in our house and I also have two Virgin mobile contracts as well, the wife and myself. We'll use the mobiles during the day and if we need to, the house phone during the evening. Only time we pick the phone up during the day is if we have no choice but to ring a 08XX number of ring VM help line.

If they can come up with something similar to BT (I think they have it?) and have land line at home but as soon as you move away it becomes a mobile, then it might help them.

As for VOIP, many with fast BB will take it up. I have yet to as I have yet to set them up!

[Morden]

VOIP is unencrypted or has poor encrpytion so can be hacked, unlike landlines which can only be accessed by the security services.

Not safe for bank transactions or other similar where you need privacy. Only landlines can provider that.

For that reason I dont use em.

[tweetypie/8]

Originally Posted by joglynne

The quarterly results have now been published.


http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/p...613&highlight=

good result vm keep it up.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by tweetypie/8

good result vm keep it up.

Not sure I'd consider the 'flagship' high speed internet product gaining virtually no customers as being a 'good result' - it's pretty much as expected methinks. Earnings dropped slightly, profit unchanged. More of a bummer is that Sky had a great quarter relatively.

Ah well competition is good, makes companies try harder

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

Not sure I'd consider the 'flagship' high speed internet product gaining virtually no customers as being a 'good result'

Sorry, I must be reading it wrong. Could you direct me to the bit where it says VM on-net broadband has gained virtually no customers?

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by Morden

VOIP is unencrypted or has poor encrpytion so can be hacked, unlike landlines which can only be accessed by the security services.

Not safe for bank transactions or other similar where you need privacy. Only landlines can provider that.

For that reason I dont use em.

Even if it did have poor encryption (which is wholey dependant on the solution) it's only vulnerable to the same sort of attacks that landlines are, that being physically sniffing data off the line.

I'd argue it's actually easier to gain access to a landline than to a voip phone, as all it requires is a couple of strands of cable and a telephone handset, sniffing and decoding voip data from a physical line is slightly more complicated than that. Go look at how many people in the phone subforum have had rogue charges on their accounts from people gaining access to the street cabinet. Doing that is trivial, and it's just as trivial to snoop on your phone line from there as well.

That's not to mention that you can secure a voip call a lot easier than you can a landline one, SRTP is widely supported now and provides the level of protection that a landline can only dream of.

Originally Posted by Pierre

Sorry, I must be reading it wrong. Could you direct me to the bit where it says VM on-net broadband has gained virtually no customers?

It's the bit where they said they gained 5,100. That's vastly less than the 54,000 they gained in the same period last year, and the 47,000 they gained in the first quarter of this year. And, by contrast, Sky has just added 124,000 customers.

So yes, by all comparisons they have gained 'virtually no customers'. These are disappointing figures for VM.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

It's the bit where they said they gained 5,100. That's vastly less than the 54,000 they gained in the same period last year, and the 47,000 they gained in the first quarter of this year. And, by contrast, Sky has just added 124,000 customers.

So yes, by all comparisons they have gained 'virtually no customers'. These are disappointing figures for VM.

I wouldn't argue that the net adds are bit disappointing and quite unfathomable why it should be so low for this quarter.

Yet with "virtually" no additions revenues are up across the board - go figure.

I would like to see the % split of our on-net broadband v other adsl providers. Sky's numbers are good but I would like to see how they compare against cable broadband.

I was once a customer of Sky and can vouch that I found them to be very good, but if I lived in a cables area I'd drop them, and other provider, like a stone.

Virgin need to improve their off-net adsl proposition in order to increase their customer base.