Now that Liberty’s Horizon is up and running, when can we expect to see it in CEE?
Listening to the conference call that accompanied the company’s latest set of results, it was disappointing to hear very little if any mention made to the region. It would have been particularly interesting to find out when the Horizon rollout may start there.
Instead, we learnt about the product’s progress to date in its first market – the Netherlands, where it has been present since early September – and upcoming launches in Switzerland later this year, followed by Germany and Ireland in 2013.
In a Q&A session, the company said that linear content delivered OTT had been particularly successful on the Horizon platform. It also said that it had had actually invested less in the product than its partners had.
Liberty Global in addition revealed that it is preparing to introduce a cloud-based UI on Horizon by the end of the year, if not sooner.
In the absence of any concrete information, we can only speculate as to when Horizon may make its debut in CEE. In all likelihood the first market to receive the product will be Poland, no earlier than Q4 next year or in early 2014.
On the plus side, by that stage any glitches in Horizon will have been well and truly ironed out and it will be a refined platform giving UPC a clear advantage in territories where in most instances it is already the market leader.
Liberty Global made reference to the fact that they have signed full MVNO contracts in Poland and Hungary. It is possible, perhaps probable, that they will in due course also do so in other CEE markets.
All in all, these are exciting times for the company, thanks largely to its successful expansion into Germany and of course the long-awaited launch of Horizon. CEE is taking something of a backseat in all this at the moment but will in due course also come into the frame.
