A massive increase in triple play customers helped Ziggo compensate for second half loses in basic cable subscriptions. Revenues increased by 7% to €676.7 million, including a 36% increase (€60.2 million) from paid-for digital TV services. EBITDA of €388 million was up 13% against H1 2009.
The Netherlands’ largest cable operator reported a 2.9% fall in total TV subscriptions, the figure masked in part by the conversion of over 20% of its analogue subscribers to the digital format.
The number of homes signed up to its ‘All in 1’ triple play bundle leapt by 67.5% from 476,000 to 797,000 as the result of a “Switch Now” marketing campaign.
“Our focus on customer satisfaction, product improvements and network infrastructure investments continues to deliver robust subscriber additions and revenue growth,” Ziggo CEO Bernard Dijkhuizen said in a statement. “Combined with strict cost control this has resulted in a solid financial performance. We are confident of achieving our full year objectives”.
The cablenet has also been promoting its HD offering ahead of the football World Cup in June. This resulted in the number of subscribers taking its HD package increasing from 70,000 to over 117,000 subscriptions. New HD additions are currently running at 30,000 per month and the cableco says there remains considerable room for growth.
Ziggo has 4,107,000 homes passed of which 3,120,000 take television services, including 1.4 million receiving digital services; 1,492,000 broadband internet and 1,073 telephony.
The number of RGUs per customer rose by 9.9% to 2.36 and ARPU by 11.2% to €32.67.
