Virgin Media UK Scrapes Upwards to Reach 4.48m Broadband Subscribers

Cable operator Virgin Media (Liberty Global) has today published its latest Q3-2013 (calendar) results and confirmed that their total broadband ISP subscriber base has crept upwards by +13,600 in the quarter to total 4,488,600, which follows a slight fall of -15.5k during the prior Q2 period. Network coverage has also improved.

The total equates to 4,336,600 cable broadband subscribers and the additional 152,000 came from customers of the slower copper line based Virgin National (Virgin.net / ADSL) platform. Sadly the ADSL platform suffered another sharp quarterly reduction of -16,600 from the total of 168,600 recorded in Q2-2013 when -12,300 were lost, which isn’t a surprise after October’s decision to stop selling the copper service (here).

In better news Virgin Media’s cable network now passes 12,531,500 homes across the United Kingdom, which is up by +84,600 since the same time last year. Clearly some work is still occurring to improve the platforms coverage but it only represents a limited improvement.

Tom Mockridge, CEO of Virgin Media, said:

“This summer we saw heightened marketing and promotions around the launch of BT Sport yet, while not chasing growth at any cost, we again increased the number of customers we serve. We are seeing people’s demand for faster broadband accelerate, even after we had completed our programme to double customers’ speeds earlier this year. A quarter of a million more homes are now getting 30Mb or faster from us than three months ago, with over 45% of our new subscribers choosing 60Mb or above.

With the addition of BT Sport we also saw renewed appetite for our TV service where TiVo, in particular, continues to lead the way as the fastest growing pay TV service in the country. In two years we have attracted 1.8 million subscribers who are paying for what we believe is the best way to watch television. In what is a competitive market, there is clearly emerging recognition of the benefits of faster broadband and advanced television. As part of Liberty Global, we are well positioned to begin to take advantage of these opportunities and meet the growing demand for digital from switched on families.”

Elsewhere Virgin Media noted that 3.0 million of their cable customers (69%) now subscribe to superfast broadband (30Mbps+) packages and that over 45% of new subscribers take speeds of 60Mbps or higher. In addition, the average monthly data consumption of Virgin Media’s broadband customers is 45GB (GigaBytes).

Sadly there’s no word of the rumoured 200Mbps service, which some predict could launch alongside Sony’s new PlayStation 4 console later this month (here).