Virgin Media Extends UK Network by 80,000 Premises in Q1 2021

Broadband ISP and TV provider Virgin Media UK (Liberty Global) has just published their latest Q1 2021 results, which saw their network coverage extend to another 80,000 premises (their slowest quarterly build so far) and their internet access base add +38,500 customers (up from +54.7k last quarter) to total 5,458,600.

The past quarter has been another interesting one for Virgin Media, which they kicked off by making their new TV 360 (IPTV) platform available to all existing customers (here) and testing a prototype of the Infinera XR Optics technology to boost network capacity speeds up to 400Gbps over a single fibre (here).

On top of that they’ve secured provisional approval from the competition authorities for their merger with O2 (here), expanded use of Teleste‘s Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) technology to boost the performance of their broadband network (here) and conducted another live customer trial of 2.2Gbps speeds (here). The operator has also begun to trial a new streaming entertainment service (here).

We also saw further hints of Liberty Global’s ambition to offer wholesale access to Virgin Media’s UK broadband network (here), although the operator has yet to formally unveil their plans on this front. Otherwise, we note that VM’s mobile (Virgin Mobile) and internet base continues to grow, while their fixed line phone and video (TV) customers are still in decline.

Quarterly UK Customer Figures for Q1 2021
5,458,600 Internet – (up from 5,420,100 in Q4 2020)
4,419,300 Phone / VoIP – (down from 4,463,200)
3,407,700 Mobile – (up from 3,358,300)
3,446,600 Video / TV – (down from 3,498,000)

The results also included an update on the pace of their Project Lightning network roll-out, which has so far added a total of over 2.6 million UK premises since 2015/16 and that includes another 80,000 premises (this should all be FTTP) that were added to their network coverage during the first quarter of 2021 (down from 115,000 in Q4 2020). This will have been impacted by the COVID-19 lockdown, although Q1 is historically one of their slowest quarters for build activity and 80k is the lowest we’ve seen it in years.

As it stands Virgin Media has civil engineering contracts that will see their build continue for the next few years, and they have big plans for the future. Last year the operator spoke of their “ambition to accelerate investments and connect a further 7 million homes to gigabit broadband in the coming years,” although the details of this will depend upon the outcome of their merger with O2 (here).

Project Lightning Rollout Since 2017
Q1 2021 = 80,000 Premises (impacted by COVID-19 lockdown)
Q4 2020 = 115,000 Premises (some impact from COVID-19)
Q3 2020 = 125,000 Premises
Q2 2020 = 93,000 Premises (impacted by COVID-19 lockdown)
Q1 2020 = 93,000 Premises (some impact from COVID-19)
Q4 2019 = 154,000 Premises
Q3 2019 = 119,000 Premises
Q2 2019 = 130,000 Premises
Q1 2019 = 102,000 Premises
Q4 2018 = 144,000 Premises
Q3 2018 = 109,000 Premises
Q2 2018 = 118,000 Premises
Q1 2018 = 111,000 Premises (likely impacted by heavy snow)
Q4 2017 = 159,000 Premises
Q3 2017 = 147,000 Premises
Q2 2017 = 127,000 Premises
Q1 2017 = 102,000 Premises

NOTE: Virgin’s UK network now covers a total of 15,386,600 UK homes passed.

The latest cost per premises estimate for their network expansion remains at c.£590, which is expected to fall further as they make greater use of Openreach’s Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product. On top of that they’ve also been achieving a respectable 30-35% penetration after 3 years.

On the financial front Virgin Media reported total quarterly revenue of £1,268.8m (down from £1,336.6m in the previous quarter), although we should add that this particular figure includes their Ireland operations too as there’s no split for the UK.

Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media, said:

“We’ve hit the ground running this year, sustaining the momentum we saw in 2020 and delivering a rock-solid performance.

The demand for our services has never been clearer. Continued investment and innovation resulted in our strongest first quarter customer additions since 2017, record-low Q1 cable churn, an acceleration in converged bundle growth and a 300% boost in new broadband subscribers.

A surge in mobile handset sales, coupled with strong top-line growth in B2B, drove our best overall revenue increase in nine quarters. This is combined with sustained investment in gigabit network expansion, digital transformation and customer service – all of which are instrumental components in establishing a stronger and nimbler business for the future

As we look ahead, we remain focused on delivering for our customers and are ready and raring to go pending clearance of the proposed combination with O2.”

Otherwise, it’s noted that the average speed across their UK broadband base has increased again to 186Mbps (vs 174Mbps in Q4 2020), while data consumption during the quarter increased 40% year-on-year. The operator also added 335,000 5G subscribers following our UK launch via Vodafone on 25th January.

Finally, Virgin Media said they’re still “on track for network wide gigabit coverage by the end of 2021,” which reflects the ongoing rollout of their new DOCSIS 3.1 network upgrade. We note that a number of areas have recently been enabled for this, although they appear to have stopped issuing regular updates about its progress (at least we haven’t had one for months).