Virgin Media UK Reaches 4.38 Million Broadband ISP Subscribers in Q1 2012

Cable giant Virgin Media UK has today released their latest quarterly results to 31st March 2012 (Q1-2012), which saw their total broadband ISP subscriber base climb from 4,351,100 at the end of last year (Q4-2011) to 4,381,600 now (+30,500 new adds). This represents a strong growth over the +17,500 added in Q4-2011.

As usual the vast majority of Virgin’s broadband subscribers are on its faster cable (DOCSIS / EuroDOCSIS) based platform, while their slower Virgin National (Virgin.net ADSL2+) based non-cable internet access services declined again from 248,200 in Q4-2011 to 233,000 now (-15,200); a slightly sharper decline than the -12,500 lost during Q4-2011.

Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media, said:

“In the first quarter of 2012, we’ve made steady progress against our strategy. Demand for superfast broadband and TiVo, the UK’s first massmarket connected TV service, continued to gather momentum. We once again demonstrated the unique power of our network by starting to double the broadband speeds of over four million customers. We have seen an increase in ARPU and greater customer loyalty with our best subscriber retention for two years and this has reinforced our confidence that people increasingly appreciate the value of a genuinely next generation digital experience.

In addition, a growing base of mobile contract subscribers together with strong revenues in Virgin Media Business showed again that we have multiple sources of revenue growth. Over the remainder of 2012, we expect continued steady progress across the company which, combined with the underlying resilience of our business model, will translate into strong cash flow and shareholder returns.”

Some 20% of Virgin’s cable broadband base (850,000) now take its 30Mbps or faster services, which includes over 250,000 on their top-end 50-100Mbps packages. At the same time the operators £100m efforts to double their customers broadband speeds, which began in March (here), have so far upgraded 250,000 subscribers (6% of their cable broadband base).

Overall Virgin Media’s total revenue currently stands at £1.006bn, which is up from £982.3m one year ago. Meanwhile their cable network’s Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) stood at £46.95 a month.