Liberty Global Reports Revenue, Subscriber Gains

ENGLEWOOD: For Q1, Liberty Global reported improved revenues and subscriber gains, but net earnings dropped to $342.4 million from $736.6 million last year, when the company benefited from a $1.4 billion one-time gain from the disposal of its stake in Japan’s J:COM.

Earnings from continuing operations, however, were $424 million, as compared with a year-ago loss from continuing operations of $633 million. Revenues for the period rose by 12 percent to $2.4 billion, largely due to the acquisition of Germany’s Unitymedia. In the period, organic revenue generating unit (RGU) additions were 251,000, a 23-percent boost.

"Our first quarter results demonstrate continued momentum in subscriber growth along with solid financial performance to begin the year," said Mike Fries, president and CEO. "We added over 250,000 subscribers in Q1, led by our Western European operations and, in particular, Unitymedia in Germany, which delivered its fourth consecutive quarter of improved volume growth since we purchased the business. From a product perspective, we are seeing strong growth in our digital cable business with 289,000 subscriber additions during the quarter, and we are aggressively leveraging our investment in next-generation broadband services across a 3.0-ready footprint that now exceeds 20 million homes passed in Europe and Chile. Our ‘Fiber Power’ bundles offer compelling value and generally include the fastest broadband speeds available in our markets.”

As at the end of March, Liberty Global provided 17.6 million customers 28 million services, consisting of 16.7 million video, 6.6 million broadband internet and 4.7 million telephony subscriptions. The company says it increased its triple-play customer base by more than 500,000 (15 percent) over this period. As of now, 22 percent of the base are triple-play customers.