Virgin Media O2 Sees UK FTTP Broadband Builds Surge and NetCo On Track
The latest Q4 2024 results from Virgin Media and O2 have been published, which saw their fixed broadband base grow by +12,000 in the quarter (vs 16.2k in Q3) to total 5,738,900. The provider’s full fibre (FTTP) network also built to another 485,500 premises, primarily via nexfibre (up from 281k in Q3), while mobile connections grew to total 45.7 million.
The combined Virgin Media and nexfibre fixed broadband network now reaches a total of 18,255,600 Homes Serviceable (up from 17,770,100 in Q3) across the UK and the vast majority of that new build is from nexfibre. The nexfibre network alone now accounts for over 2 million UK premises passed of this total.
The results reveal that a total of around 6.4 million Virgin Media and nexfibre premises (footprint) are now covered by full fibre FTTP lines (XGS-PON and RFOG), which is up from 5.3m in Q3 2024. But this also factors in Virgin’s ongoing upgrade of existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) areas to FTTP under Project Mustang (i.e. aiming to convert all of Virgin’s existing HFC and RFOG lines to XGS-PON by 2028).
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In addition, the c.175,000 premises passed by Upp, which was previously acquired by nexfibre, also appear to have been largely included into the latest quarterly build total as VMO2’s results highlight the “successful integration of the altnet“. Finally, a tiny portion of the nexfibre figures below will include a bit of infill build for Virgin Media itself (e.g. usually taking place on existing new build homes sites).
Nexfibre Rollout Progress
Q4 2024 = 485,500 Premises
Q3 2024 = 281,100 Premises
Q2 2024 = 295,300 Premises
Q1 2024 = 194,000 Premises
Q4 2023 = c.299,000 Premises
Q3 2023 = 250,800 Premises
Q2 2023 = 175,500 Premises
Q1 2023 = 107,800 Premises
Q4 2022 = 24,000 Premises
Just for context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners established a new £4.5bn joint venture called nexfibre in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access full fibre (FTTP) network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises. But Virgin Media, which shares some of the same parentage, is currently the only major ISP on this network (here).
Elsewhere, Virgin Media has long stopped giving any solid figures for their Pay TV (video) base, which often happens when a base is in decline.
VMO2 Q4 2024 UK Customer (Connection) Figures
5,738,900 Fixed Broadband – (up from 5,726,900 in Q3)
45,700,700 Mobile inc. Wholesale – (up from 45,412,100)
The latest results also state that outdoor 5G mobile coverage is now available to 75% of the UK population (up strongly from 68% in Q3 and 65% in Q2) and we note that their mobile base has returned to growth in Q4 too (it declined a bit in Q3). On the financial front, VMO2 reported total revenue of £2,716.2m in Q4 2024, which is up from £2,701.8m last quarter.
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Lutz Schüler, CEO of VMO2, said:
“We said 2024 was a year of investing to support our long-term growth and these results reflect that. We close the first chapter of Virgin Media O2 having delivered our full year guidance and hitting our JV synergy targets 18 months ahead of schedule, meaning we are well set for the future.
We ended the year with another quarter of fixed customer and ARPU growth, positive mobile contract additions and improved customer satisfaction through a relentless focus on customer experience.
Our investments of more than £2 billion across the year helped us to significantly boost our 5G coverage, improve mobile network quality and enhance rural connectivity. We also expanded our fibre footprint faster than ever as we build on our existing gigabit leadership and push ahead with creating the biggest fibre challenger in the UK along with nexfibre.
In 2024 we laid the foundations for future success, and in 2025 we will get back to growth in core revenues and profitability while continuing investment in our networks and services. Throughout the year we’ll also deliver on key strategic moves, including the creation of a fixed NetCo and the expected acquisition of spectrum from Vodafone-Three which will further improve mobile performance. This is the start of a new chapter for Virgin Media O2.”
Sadly, the latest results didn’t include much in the way of any useful updates on Virgin Media’s plans for opening their existing fixed broadband network up to wholesale via their new NetCo in the first half of 2025, but they did state that this was “on track” to “support the long-term underpinning of fibre upgrade activity and take up“.
However, recent media reports have suggested that VMO2 may have made progress on their efforts to raise an additional £1bn to support the NetCo project (here), which is understood to have recently received several non-binding offers from investors (potentially including BlackRock and CPP Investments etc.). The effort would hand investors up to a 40% stake in the planned NetCo business.
The big challenge for such a NetCo will be to attract any significant ISP support, at least beyond those already owned by the likes of Liberty Global or Telefónica (i.e. O2, Virgin Media, Giffgaff). Potential ISP partners will be looking to be treated fairly (wholesale agreements), which is always a tricky thing to balance vs the desire by some for exclusivity agreements.
The NetCo must at the same time be competitive with the dedicated wholesale platforms from larger providers like CityFibre and the regulated Openreach, while also making what they build as easy to harness as possible. One potential issue here is that Virgin Media’s own retail broadband pricing, particularly its post contract pricing, is still relatively high compared to a lot of other FTTP providers. The NetCo will need to be more competitive than that, which could be a hard thing to balance.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Move from regular (non fibre) Virgin Media to YouFibre a week ago and couldn’t be happier.
Methinks Virgin left things too little too late to jump on the FTTP bandwagon, their biggest USP (fastest speeds) is no longer unique and the competition is fierce.
Likewise. Partner’s house moves from VM to You Fibre next week.
Waiting for You Fibre to actually do my own house then a shift from VM to You Fibre.
Then 2 other family members moving from VM to You Fibre (already available there) once VM contracts finish.
No You Fibre where my mother is but the “silver surfer” is switching from EE to CityFibre end of this year when contract up.
Most of us are switching because sick of VM’s yearly price jack even if you had just re-negotiated a contract.
All of us are switching because a symmetric service is offered.
VM definitely need to do something about their pricing, the altnets are now roughly half the cost for their top tier 2tb+ offering and symmetrical.
I’m still waiting on cityfibre to get to me, it’s available half a mile up the road so getting closer, we also now have another altnet overbuilding around me so I should have 4x full fibre providers eventually when you include VM and overreach.
Unfortunately it’s OR or VM/NF only where I live, so I have no choice if I want faster upload speeds.
I might have considered their TV service, but in NF areas they don’t offer a local DVR, at which point I might as well look at Sky Stream.
Ironically, speeds aside Coax areas still seem to have some potential advantages e.g. landline/voip and DVR.
my 2gig from virin is only £45, unsure what it is at youfibre, my town was meant to get youfibre, but they stopped because Grain, I honestly don’t know how they can compare themselfs to grain, the ISP that does 10-20 roads. its shocking.
485,000 new premises in the quarter. Gained 12,000 customers. They’re losing customers in the previously covered areas for sure. This is a lot of money to hold your customer base basically stagnant but saw the same thing with the Lightning build.
Be a bit strange if the legacy players didn’t lose customers to the altnets to some extent.
I’m sure in earlier quarters they were reporting loss of customers but gains in Q3 and Q4, as you said effectively stagnant.
Record breaking build programme they claim but not record breaking uptake.
HFC areas in decline, people switching away. Only NexFibre results save them as new areas, maybe with no other fast providers.
Now that upp is completed, are these numbers taken into account? Sounds like their legacy base is plummeting
I’d hope so too, anyone who is able to get any of the modern networks would be crazy to pay HFC pricing, moved my sister and my mum over to youfibre, and they paid £300 for them ending their contract early, this is unreal. Virgin is going to lose a lot of HFC people.
Years ago, I would have gone with them or the company they were at the time, that was in the ADSL days, if they were available here.
But now, if they did come here either as Virgin or YouFibre, I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. Not that there is much chance of them coming here, certainly not as Virgin and I have not heard of any plans for YouFibre to come here.
I don’t know which company is worse, Virgin Media or openreach.
I was wrong, nextfibre is supposed to be coming here next year, that will upset some people, they complained enough when Zzoomm was digging up the roads.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/04/list-of-uk-places-live-with-cityfibres-fttp-broadband-isps-2024-edition.html#comment-304280
Told ya.
really looking forward to them opening it to other companies, just don’t think giffgaff will be “good” enough, its a shame as the only issue with xgs network is when you need support / pricing. Youfibre have this all sorted, let’s hope other companies follow, people are so lucky if your in one of there select areas.
Openreach might just recable our street before VM even starts thinking about it. Supposedly by end of year but the engineer I spoke to was sceptical. Basically ready to jump ship, Getting choked on upload.
As I’ve said before, we have Nexfibre available right outside, but I’ll never go anywhere near Virgin.
When it’s available on a monthly contract via IDNet I’ll give it a shot.
Until then… /care
I think there’s a (dangerous) element of expectation from the management of VM02/NexFibre that if they build XGSPON the customers will come. The debt pile they are taking on suggests that they expect to see significant growth in order to service the interest and charges.
However it’s quite clear that customers are leaving Virgin Media in their droves in favour of other options where available (even if it’s Openreach FTTP) to escape the constant conveyer belt of price rises and dreadful customer service. I suspect NexFibre is only doing well (and masking VM’s sizeable loss of customer base) simply because they are building in areas where folk have not yet had the misfortune of experiencing Virgin Media firsthand.
It would be interesting to see customer retention figures in more mature build areas as they really need to keep the majority of their customers longer than 18-24 months to actually succeed and turn a profit. Certainly I’m aware that VM have been offering well below market value retention offers (£16/month for 18 months) to customers where CityFibre retail offerings are available which is just insane but I’m not sure that will be sustainable in the long term.
I do wonder if VM as a retail brand will eventually be consigned to the trashcan of history, and NetCo becomes a fully open wholesale provider with fair terms for all parties – I can see some unhappy NetCo investors on the horizon.
I thought Nexfibre was a wholesale only network, if so, then people will not be dealing with Virgin.
i[ am fine with where I am, certainly not going to change while I am here.
As far as I can see, Nexfibre exists as a separate infrastructure owner to stop Virgin Media being classified as a Significant Market Player if they continued expanding their physical network and thus opening themselves up to regulation (pricing and potentially PIA) by OFCOM.
They have been talking about opening up their network for wholesale for quite some time now but seem to have made little progress. I would not be surprised if it never opens up to wholesale at all.
Why do the NetCo, Openreach and Cityfibre all need to exist past 2026?