Parm Sandhu
Unitymedia has continued to deliver on its Unity3play triple play concept, growing RGUs across the board, though with particular success for telephony and broadband internet.
Customers in NRW and Hessen took out an additional 175,000 subscriptions to new services in the first quarter, taking the total to 1.7 million, a 60% increase year-on-year. Internet Revenue Generating Units were up by 90%, and telephony RGUs by 23%.
“We’ve positioned Unity3Play even more strongly over the last year, where we’ve given it a broadband speed leadership position and enhanced the value for money proposition in what is otherwise a recessionary position,” Unity Media CEO Palm Sandhu told Broadband TV News. He said marketing had been increased and new retail stores opened. “Given the upgrade is now more advanced we’re penetrating our marketing down to the ‘B’ and ‘C’ cities down to 50 and 25,000 inhabitants.”
86% of the network has now been upgraded to offer telephony and internet services. Sandhu said there were plans to rollout DOCSIS 3.0 in the coming quarters in selected areas.
Basic cable ARPU continues to rise, growing by 5.4% on the year, and reaching €10.12 at the end of the first quarter. However, pay-TV ARPU fell 9.2% to €9.17. “Our focus is very much more on basic pay, than premium pay, so we don’t see this as a negative trend because we’re growing pay-TV penetration to levels that have never been seen.”
29% of the cablenet’s 4,577,000 subscribers now take digital services, though like so many operators there has been a decline in basic cable subscriptions, down 3.3% on the year.
Adjusted Cable EBITDA was up 13% to €107 million on a margin of 48%.
