UPC clocks up 26K broadband subscribers

09-08-2007

by Charlie Taylor

UPC Ireland, the parent company of NTL and Chorus, gained 26,000 additional broadband subscribers during the first six months of 2007, according to new figures.

The company's Irish division now has over 67,000 subscribers in total. UPC said on Thursday that its Irish subsidiary attained revenues of USD148.4 million for the first half of 2007, up 17.3 percent on the USD126.5 million recorded for the same six-month period a year ago.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2007, revenues for UPC Ireland totaled USD74.7 million, up 9.9 percent on the USD64.8 million posted last year.

In addition, the firm said over 140,000 Irish homes can now avail of its phone service and that it expects to grow this number to 400,000 by the end of 2007. It also boasted of an 18 percent year-on-year rise in digital TV subscribers and said it will shortly be launching a new digital video recorder service.

"Our second quarter of 2007 shows continued strong growth across all of our triple play residential products -- namely digital TV, broadband internet and digital phone. We are encouraged by the continuing strong take up of our high-speed services and have over 67,000 broadband subscribers adding a further 26,000 subscribers during the course of the year," said Robert Dunn, UPC CEO.

"Overall, I'm delighted with our results -- they underline the steady progress we are making in building a lead in the triple play field," he added noting that the firm is now offering its triple play service from EUR50 a month.

Meanwhile, UPC's parent company Liberty Global reported a USD130 million loss in the second quarter from continuing operations. This compares to a loss of USD184 million for the same three-month period a year ago.

Revenue during the quarter increased to USD2.18 billion, a rise of 37 percent versus the second quarter of fiscal 2006, when the company reported revenue of USD1.59 billion. Liberty Global's first-half 2007 revenue grew 39 percent to USD4.29 billion.

Liberty claimed it had 23.1 million total revenue generating units (RGUs) at 30 June 2007, broken down to 14.7 million video, 4.9 million broadband internet and 3.5 million telephony subscribers.

During the second quarter, the firm added approximately 266,000 RGUs, consisting of 159,000 broadband internet additions, 161,000 telephony additions and a loss of 54,000 video subscribers.