Notification of Second Quarter 2008 Results

Linky

Financial

• OCF of £333m (Q2-07: £315m)

• Operating loss of £333m (Q2-07: £3m income) including £366m non-cash goodwill impairment charge relating to Mobile segment

Operational
• Total RGU net adds of 136,800 (Q2-07: 59,000)
• 5,300 additional increase in reported RGUs from data cleanse (Q2-07: 4,200)
• Low on-net churn of 1.3% (Q2-07: 1.8%)
• On-net customer net disconnects of 19,500 (Q2-07: 70,300 net reduction)
• 18,900 additional decrease in reported customers from data cleanse (Q2-07: nil)
• On-net broadband net additions of 54,600 (Q2-07: 45,800)
• Customers taking top-tier broadband up 82% year-on-year
• TV subscribers net additions of 24,800 (Q2-07: 2,200)
• On-net telephony net additions of 3,400 (Q2-07: 56,900 net reduction)
• BBC iPlayer launched on VOD platform, achieving 10.5m views in June
• Contract mobile net additions of 55,900 (Q2-07: 52,800)
• On-net cable ARPU of £41.63 (Q2-07: £42.16)
• Record triple-play penetration of 53.1% (Q2-07: 45.2%)

[tvtimes]

They didn't make a profit. They made a £3m profit last quarter and have now posted a £336m loss! But overall every where else looks to be improving and the results certainly do look go considering the current ecomonic climate.

---------- Post added at 12:50 ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 ----------

Originally Posted by BexTech

I'm tight-fisted and know mobiles are a rip-off, so haven't had a contract mobile for many years. I do have a phone line but was part of a deal to keep me. Most of my calls are on the landline to other landlines as the people I know are tight-fisted too and don't like rip-off mobiles either and are fooled into paying stupid monthly payments for a mobile to get a few hundred 'free' minutes - we have sense. We make many a call in the evening and weekend - so getting the landline and evening and weekend calls package thrown in with the heavily discounted package makes great sense - I was VoIP only for 3 years or so. I also use VoIP for other calls and have a Vodafone mobile with 6 of us on the Vodafone family so we pay £1.17 each per month for 'free' calls between us at any time.

You see when you are bought up in a family that has always done all they can to spend the least they can, it does rub off on you, plus you have more money left for better things / better days.

So maybe it's a combination of poor Virgin Media landline phone costs and people fooled into paying silly money for contract mobiles that hasn't helped, saying that, the vast majority of people who dumped cable phone went back to a BT network landline.

I find most of my friends and family have virgin mobile phones on the 300 mins and 300 texts for £10 deals. I never use my landline but is part of my package so it's there but i never use it. Whereas i use my mobile a lot as do my friends.

They seem to be doing alot better everything has increased I aint suprised tho seeing how many people in my team are getting customers taking new services, hopefully they can now start pumping money into the networks and IPTV and get rid of stm and once this network is sorted start getting more HD

[Horizon]

Berkett just said on the webcast, that STM will stay once 50mb comes on line, but that it will be reduced. They're doing the modelling now. But its disappointing that VM won't turn off analogue completely until 2010. Berkett said they could change this schedule if they so wished. I wish they would.

Analysts did ask Berkett why he couldn't switch analogue off sooner, as he said all this bandwith could be used for better things. He said the 200k analogue customers are valuble and migration will not be forced. The truth IMO, is that VM have 6bn debts and can ill afford to do this. Otherwise, analogue would've been axed long ago.

Berkett did mention HD. So perhaps more will be coming "soon".

[Fatec]

Originally Posted by Neptune

Berkett just said on the webcast, that STM will stay once 50mb comes on line, but that it will be reduced. They're doing the modelling now. But its disappointing that VM won't turn off analogue completely until 2010. Berkett said they could change this schedule if they so wished. I wish they would.

Analysts did ask Berkett why he couldn't switch analogue off sooner, as he said all this bandwith could be used for better things. He said the 200k analogue customers are valuble and migration will not be forced. The truth IMO, is that VM have 6bn debts and can ill afford to do this. Otherwise, analogue would've been axed long ago.

Berkett did mention HD. So perhaps more will be coming "soon".

Yep, STM limits are changing, though from what i have seen, the change is barely worth while and the STM limits for 50Mbit will still only allow you 20Minutes of full use before capping you down to 10/512, hardly worth it for a premium product.

And upload is *officially* confirmed (and will be to public soon) as 1.5Mbit upload, with the business side getting 2Mbit upload.

So STM is going on to 50mb but they are gonna lower the timeslots or the limits 20mb - 500mb and then limited I really wouldnt like that lol 20Mb should have around a 30gb limit all day until 9pm then I would be happy

---------- Post added at 16:50 ---------- Previous post was at 16:48 ----------

Originally Posted by TraxData2

Yep, STM limits are changing, though from what i have seen, the change is barely worth while and the STM limits for 50Mbit will still only allow you 20Minutes of full use before capping you down to 10/512, hardly worth it for a premium product.

And upload is *officially* confirmed (and will be to public soon) as 1.5Mbit upload, with the business side getting 2Mbit upload.

90% decrease? WTF

[Fatec]

Originally Posted by darthlinux

So STM is going on to 50mb but they are gonna lower the timeslots or the limits 20mb - 500mb and then limited I really wouldnt like that lol 20Mb should have around a 30gb limit all day until 9pm then I would be happy

---------- Post added at 16:50 ---------- Previous post was at 16:48 ----------



90% decrease? WTF

The time slot will reduce (only by a few hours each way) but the limits will change with this (so you can still get stm'd for upto 15 hours per day), it makes it look fairer when in reality it is not.

50Mbit has -extremely poor- limits for what is supposed to be a premium product, and remember it will also have the daytime STM as well as evening STM, so remember VM saying you can use it to stream HD content? not for longer than 20 minutes, you can't.

Yea..90% decrease, to fit in line with the other STM rules.

*cries* other speeds have 75% decrease

stupid VM

[brundles]

Perhaps my maths is out but isn't 50meg down to 10meg an 80% drop rather than 90%?

I can see the logic for regularly breaking the current thresholds with gaming, streaming, etc, but given that 50meg will get close to an 8GB DL DVD sized file in 20 odd minutes, unless you can find an HD streaming service, what other uses are there for regularly breaking the threshold? I can't help but think (again) VM will start to push XXL (or whatever it gets called) based on capacity rather than speed. (OK, that's perhaps slightly OT so to keep it on-topic - this would help push people onto higher packages increasing the ARPU again whlie moving them to the lower cost/maintenance (I believe) DOCSIS 3 network improving overall profitability).

[BexTech]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

I find most of my friends and family have virgin mobile phones on the 300 mins and 300 texts for £10 deals. I never use my landline but is part of my package so it's there but i never use it. Whereas I use my mobile a lot as do my friends.

That isn't a bad deal really, if you do use them, each and every month.

However using a landline is still a lot cheaper, just not so cheap on Virgin Media. OK if calling a mobile from a landline it can be dear, however if you have a BT landline and use Primus Saver 2 with Penny Mobile (both no monthly fee) then you can call UK mobiles for 20p for up to 20 mins.

Good to see they have added a few phone customers, but still not the numbers they could be if they offered a decent priced phone service.

As we are more or less not really paying for the landline or the calls package and it was installed free, with a discount on the TV and broadband if we stayed a customer, it's beneficial for use to have the phone line - even though we were happily VoIP only using a Linksys PAP2 and having 2 lines which cost less than £10 for around 3 years usage. It's cheaper to use VoIP and landline to call abroad than using the mobile, unless you waste inclusive minutes.

I may have a dig now and then at Virgin Media, but that's only because I want them to improve, want them to do well.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by brundles

Perhaps my maths is out but isn't 50meg down to 10meg an 80% drop rather than 90%?

I can see the logic for regularly breaking the current thresholds with gaming, streaming, etc, but given that 50meg will get close to an 8GB DL DVD sized file in 20 odd minutes, unless you can find an HD streaming service, what other uses are there for regularly breaking the threshold? I can't help but think (again) VM will start to push XXL (or whatever it gets called) based on capacity rather than speed. (OK, that's perhaps slightly OT so to keep it on-topic - this would help push people onto higher packages increasing the ARPU again whlie moving them to the lower cost/maintenance (I believe) DOCSIS 3 network improving overall profitability).

[demented]

Not sure what to make of the results. Pretty positive v+ growth and broadband churn, revenues, arpu, debt pretty much constant and all in an environment of financial crisis.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by demented

Not sure what to make of the results. Pretty positive v+ growth and broadband churn, revenues, arpu, debt pretty much constant and all in an environment of financial crisis.

Steady is about right, but certainly not exciting, but that is very much to do with the current climate.

[tvtimes]

I would say the results are encouraging considering the ecomonic down turn. People like ITV and BT seem to be hit harder and churn seems to be high with these companies where as virgin is actuall increasing subs a lot more than it is losing them. It is better to lower ARPU than to lose your customers all together. Overall there is nothing to shout about but VM are certainly holding their own considering the hard times placed on them and us customers.

[Fatec]

Originally Posted by brundles

Perhaps my maths is out but isn't 50meg down to 10meg an 80% drop rather than 90%?

80% Though its more near 90% with overheads from the severe upload drop, the way they prioritise this means you will never get 10Mbit down.

I can see the logic for regularly breaking the current thresholds with gaming, streaming, etc, but given that 50meg will get close to an 8GB DL DVD sized file in 20 odd minutes, unless you can find an HD streaming service, what other uses are there for regularly breaking the threshold? I can't help but think (again) VM will start to push XXL (or whatever it gets called) based on capacity rather than speed. (OK, that's perhaps slightly OT so to keep it on-topic - this would help push people onto higher packages increasing the ARPU again whlie moving them to the lower cost/maintenance (I believe) DOCSIS 3 network improving overall profitability).

Ok, what about the fact most house holds now have more than 1 PC? 1 kid playing games, 1 kid streaming youtube, iplayer, itunes, legal p2p services, HD streams, dvd rental/downloads.

Then one person downloading (note that 50Mbit has its own legal HD streaming service)

That limit can be hit within 20Minutes and then the product cannot do what it is advertised to do, multitask and do it fast, 8GB is nothing, xbox360 demos weigh in at 1-4gb, patches for wow weigh in at 3GB, it only takes 1-2 people multitasking for you to hit STM and then the connection becomes useless, its not so much a thing of people downloading illegal content 24/7, it's just a simple fact that file sizes are no longer small and 8GB limit is stupid in this day and age, why assume anyone who is grabbing big files is an illegal downloader?

And sorry, but no, if you're paying for 50Mbit, then you want big files and you want them fast, only rather (stupid?) people would pay for 50Mbit to download an mp3 in a few seconds and not make use of the connection.