Ziggo reports fast digital TV growth

Dutch cabler Ziggo has reported a rapid growth in the number of digital households in the first half of 2009. This resulted in an increase of 387,000 customers to reach a total base of 1,382,000. The company remains the number one provider of digital TV in the Netherlands.

As with all cable nets in Europe, the number of actual subscribers continues to decrease. The number is down 48,000 to a total of 3,215,000 subscribers. The number of homes passed grew to 4,038,000 – up from 3,999,000 the previous year.

The number of broadband subscribers grew by 1% to 1,400,000. Telephony subscriptions reached 903,000. This is 17.3% growth compared to the first half of 2008. The number of bundles grew by 356,000 to 476,000 in the first half of 2009.

Ziggo has introduced several new products and services during the first half year. In April the cabler launched Video On Demand (VOD) and signed agreements with Sony and Warner Brothers amongst others. Recently, with the implementation of EuroDOCSIS 3.0, Ziggo increased faster internet speeds to better meet the competition from DSL.

The company said it further improved results in the first half of 2009 compared to the first half of 2008 with revenue increased 2.6% in the first half of 2009 to €630 million and a strong growth of revenue generating units (RGUs) by 7.8% to 6.9 million.