Virgin Media Notification of Second Quarter 2011 Results

[spych102]

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.

[Ignitionnet]

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 ----------

Originally Posted by spych102

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.

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.

[spych102]

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?

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by denphone

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.

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.

[New to cable]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

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.

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

[batchain]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

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.

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/

[m419]

Originally Posted by denphone

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

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.

[Ignitionnet]

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

[gcampbell]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

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

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.

[Ignitionnet]

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.

[dja74]

Originally Posted by gcampbell

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

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.